Good morning, loves.
A friend and I were talking yesterday about shame, and I was asking her where she puts hers — how she processes it, where she stores it, where it emerges in her life. I still spend a lot of time (too much time) struggling with my own shame, often quite painfully. I am quite good at revisiting what I think are my worst moments — moments when I believe that I failed myself and others terribly — and then doing a fair bit of damage to myself over that obsessive thinking. Thus, I'm always curious to learn how other people manage this black hole of a human emotion.
In the middle of my friend's answer, she said something that is still resonating in me, many hours later. She said, "Liz, the world doesn't need your shame. We don't want your shame. We have no use for it. It produces nothing. Your shame helps nobody. It's not creative, or generative, or healing in any way. Shame is not what you were put on earth to share with us."
A thought I had never quite considered before.
Shame is not what any of us were put on earth to share with each other.
I'm pretty sure she's right. I'm pretty sure I know already what we were put on earth to share — not only with each other, but with ourselves.
The big love, you guys, and the big love only.
Be kind to yourself today,
LG
