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How Do You Do The Work on Shame?

foggy landscape
A cloud of shame can darken any beautiful scene.

What Causes Shame?

For me, shame happens when I believe that something about me, or something I’ve done, is not accepted by others. The possible, or actual, rejection of a whole group of people is usually what makes me feel shame the most. But even potential rejection by one person can bring it on.

This experience leads me to hide, to lack confidence, to lie, to be a perfectionist, to avoid even positive exposure, and to self-attack.

Shame is one of the most debilitating experiences I know.

So How Can I Do The Work on Shame?

I do The Work on shame by noticing my stressful thoughts, writing them down, and questioning them. There are two main areas of stressful thoughts in my experience of shame.

1. My thoughts about myself: what a terrible thing I did, or how I’m a loser/bad person

2. My desire for approval from the people who will, or have, disapproved of me

The First Category Is a List of Self-Judgments

This list can include what I actually did, why it’s a terrible thing, and what it means about me.

For example, I recently learned that in a past life I was a “money minded” teacher, making a business of teaching others. This was taboo in that society. And when I got negative feedback in that lifetime, I quit my business and shunned making money completely.

Whether this story is true or not, just hearing the possibility of it made me feel shame today. And it certainly explained my aversion to money from a young age in this life, and some of my lack of confidence.

So how could I work this? It’s a funny situation working something “from a past life” but I treat it just like working a situation from a dream. I hold the situation as I imagined it to be. That is enough to gather my stressful thoughts.

Here are some of my shameful thoughts, my self-judgments:

What I did:

I made a terrible mistake.
I was “money minded.”
I was materialistic.

And that means that:

I am not fit for spiritual life.
I should never pursue money again.
I am a bad person.

I can now take each one of these stressful thoughts to inquiry using the four questions and turnarounds of The Work.

The Second Category Gets to the Core of It For Me

The second category of stressful thoughts around shame is my desire to avoid disapproval. For me, this is what drives my self-judgments above.

In fact, I attack myself often as a way of preventing disapproval from others. Working my stressful thoughts about others disapproving of me can help free me from this self-attack.

Here’s where a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet can serve. I use it to capture my stressful thoughts about the people who saw me as “money minded.”

1. I am ashamed because they disapprove of me.

2. I want them to be gentle with me. I want them to continue including me. I want them to be understanding. I want them to approve of me.

3. They should ask themselves if what I did was really wrong. They should frame it in terms of what doesn’t work for them. They shouldn’t reject me as a whole. They shouldn’t be so black and white.

4. I need them to accept me. I need them to be on my side. I need them to love me unconditionally.

5. They are judgmental, harsh, extreme, hypocrites, powerful.

6. I don’t ever want to be rejected by them again.

Now that I’ve got my thoughts about them down, I can work through them one by one using the four questions and turnarounds of The Work.

I’m Looking for Both My Innocence and My Part

Doing The Work often reveals how innocent I am. I was just doing what human beings do. When I own it without beating myself up, I’m free again.

For me, shame is a poor substitute for humility. When I shame myself, I beat myself up instead of actually owning my part. When I truly own my part, there is no need to beat myself up at all. I just am what I am, and I’m not pretending to be anything else. That’s true humility. And there’s freedom in that, not shame.

I invite you to question your stressful thoughts around a situation where you felt shame. Be gentle. But, if you can find the balance between seeing your innocence and owning your part, there may be no more need for shame.

Have a great weekend,
Todd

“We’re so secretive about what makes us feel ashamed that we even try to keep it from ourselves, clinging to our pretense of self-respect while our thoughts run on about how terrible we are and how unforgivable the things we’ve done. Secrets cry out for inquiry. You can’t be free if you’re hiding. And in the end, the things we’re ashamed of turn out to be the greatest gifts we have to give.” Byron Katie, I Need Your Love, Is That True?

Todd Smith has been doing The Work of Byron Katie on an almost daily basis since 2007. He is just as excited about this simple process of self-inquiry today as he was when he first came across it. He also enjoys writing about The Work, and training others in the subtleties of this meditative process. Join Todd for The Work 101 online course, private sessions, virtual retreats, and his ongoing Inquiry Circle group.