Shame

To be ashamed is to truly feel awful. It gives you a gnawing, biting sense of failure that makes you grimace and hide your face. It happens so often. Brought on by a slip up, a miss calculated chance, an unkind friend, misspoken words…

But why is it that we have this shame? We bring it on ourselves. We take things too much to heart. We punish ourselves for a simple mistake. We beat ourselves up over little things.

Shame was never ours to begin with though. Think about the first shame you ever felt… it wasn’t yours. It was someone else’s. it came from a parent, or a friend, stranger even. You were fine until someone told you that you were wrong, or looked at you with critical eyes, or radiated shame for themselves. It was then you realized that there was something to be ashamed of.

Even Adam and Eve didn’t feel their own shame. They received it through the tree of knowledge. It didn’t belong to them.

Shame is just a creation. But it’s not a creation of our own doing. It is learned from others, who have in turn learned to be ashamed.

It serves a purpose no doubt. It drives us forward, keeping us from embarrassing ourselves. But it also traps us. it keeps us from taking chances… and fills us with fear.

Shame is overused. It is unnecessary and heartbreaking. It makes us think less of ourselves. It makes us loose our hard earned compassion. It’s difficult to see the beauty in oneself, but when you can, it fills us with such warmth and purpose. Shame is dangerous and threatens to blind us to our strengths.

Shame is a thoughtless gift.