Inside the shell of shame

There’s a place inside that’s damp, dark, cold. Where cobwebs decorate the corners and there’s nowhere to sit because no one would want to visit this place, let alone stay a while. It’s the place inside where shame lives, but does not stay. It comes from here, but in it’s longing to be understood, held and healed, it creeps from this place like a fog. In a moments time, it can turn a blue sky day into a confused darkness.

I’ve been visiting this place recently. I follow the wispy tendrils of shame as I identify their hold on me in the present moments and attempt to slowly untangle them, hoping for freedom. They lead me here, to this damp, dark, cold place within, where shame lives. 

In this place I hold these moment of shame in my hands, like stones strewn about in a dark cave. The stones seem smooth somehow, having been left to tumble for years in the ebb and flow of my inner ocean. And at first they seem so insignificant and I wonder how they could have such a hold on me. But in my hands they are like lead and the weight of what they hold is evident.

At first there is grief. The pain of so much left unacknowledged, unfelt, unsaid. So much has been buried here, deep inside. But if you flip a stone over, or better yet, crack it open, it’s there that you’ll find what was hidden by shame; strength, courage, beauty, the light of my core, like the inside of a geode, treasures waiting to be rediscovered.

Shame told me to hide, that it wasn’t safe to be fully myself. Shame said my gifts hurt others, shame told me my optimism was naive, that I smiled too much and was too sensitive and soft, fake, ridiculous, a dreamer in a world meant only for logic. Shame told me to be realistic. Shame told me to question everything. Shame told me I had no power, that I was weak, and that any confidence was fake. And so I believed I was alone and always would be, and to stay safe I would stay hidden.

But behind the shell of shame is where I find my power. And in this rediscovery, as I break through each layer, the thing that shines the brightest is the part of me that knows herself. It’s the part of me that’s always known herself. When I look back and into the eyes of my three year old self, it is clear that I didn’t start out this way, doubting myself, my power, my beauty, my strength. It’s something I learned overtime; to question myself, my worth, to question what’s inside. But this part of me, who knows herself deeply, she’s been there all along, at the core of my being. She knew we’d find our way back again. She knew we’d never really forget, because it’s the flame within, the magma at our core, connecting us to the earth, the power within her, the same power held within us, a flame that never goes out.