5 Plans Of Action To Heal Shame.
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Shame is a hit-and-run driver in a woman’s life. It gets drunk on her innocence and optimism.
It careens down the highway of the soul, swerving, picking off the freedom to just be. It is such a regular presence that we don’t even realize has taken root in our most sacred palace and extends itself like an infinite redwood into our higher selves.
We cannot see our greatest selves beyond giant shame trees that provides shade for our demons of guilt, while we sweat in the harshness of the midday sun of our hang-ups, begging to believe we are worthy.
At the crossroads of any decision to be made, shame is there ready to blame you when you follow the path of least resistance.
To have awareness, an ethical compass, higher consciousness, compassion and values is not synonymous with shame, but many of us confuse this notion and create sorely misguided spiritual practices, bruising our knees and getting a little more neurotic with each passing day.
It is zealotry that has prevented we humans from reaching our full potential by attaching shame to our natural instincts and devising laws to protect our human nature from ourselves.
This insidious consciousness feeds on the living goddess: her beauty, her desires, her feelings, her accomplishments, even her anatomy and her bank account. It keeps her from taking a leap toward the impossible. It is what keeps her pinned to the rough tree of ignorance in the public sphere.
She becomes the target of politics based on subtle quiet terror whispering to us to hide or be destroyed. “Hide your shame. Cover up or pay the high price.”
Look Between your Legs.
The vagina is a living sentient entity all of its own. It is the muse of mystery and the stuff of legend. It thinks, feels, cleanses itself and guides our ethical compass. It is a trickling fountain of creation and an ever budding flower of deep Goddess Wisdom. When looked upon, it incites the current of nature.
It is tied to the moon, who also steers the greatest seafarers to their charted course and protects sleeping children at night. It has been called the way to heaven and the path of destruction. It is the most unique aspect of a woman, and the secret to her undeniable magnetism.
Because of the fearsome power of feminine delights, the vagina has become the breeding ground for shame. For those that have an uncontrollable violent urge to usurp this luminescence, the almighty finger points back to the source.
We are sluts if we dress sexy. We should not have looked so enticing or have been weak enough to allow ourselves to get raped. We live in a society where that malignant thinking is seen as balanced, correct. What the ever-loving fuck?
Our responsibility is to illuminate the inherent value of our goddess nature within our own soul work, so we may heal and create a reality where we can be honored for being the bearers of life.
The Problem Lies.
The two orifices on our body that are the essence of creation are incidentally the same orifices we are told to keep closed. We have been instructed to relax and have a seat, drink some tea, don’t worry your poor little head, shut up, you’re weak,you’re a fucking bitch.
And as we sit remaining in a quiet half-life homeostasis placated with condescending pleasantries, we die a little on the inside from not being able to howl at the moon without fearing negative consequences; and so we slather on another layer of lipstick, hoping for the best.
We have been challenged by this since the dawn of time. Each generation picks a little piece of the shell to our greatest potential and scatters it as stardust in the sky, leaving a map for future generations.
From that intelligence, we are created again and again, the best parts taken to keep replenishing the process of evolution on a constant feminine flow.
The problem is that our polar complement, the devolved patriarchy and the devolved matriarchy, has amputated Goddess power. They fought dirty. They burned books, they burned us. They took away our young and they bled us to death.
They took the most important parts of sacred myth and changed our names to their own. They called us cunts while they were the ones grooming little girls into child whores to traffic.
They created a bio-weapon in a system of lies that could induce the worst of emotions and implant terminal malignancies.
They had to go into the bowels of their own fractured psyche and discover all that goes against the laws of nature in order to create an illusory uprising designed to make us believe that somehow it is our fault for existing.
Then finally, they pit us against one another in a competition that spans the gamut of vulnerability, shame and guilt to see which of our asses deems us fit for a title.
Goddesses, we have been demeaned. But there is beauty in the presence of a challenge. There is undiscovered love present in the struggle.
Too Scared to Ask.
I have recently had an influx of success in my life and it has triggered this internal firing round:
Is it really possible to have what I want? Should I have what I want? Am I selfish if I want to be wealthy? Does it mean that I am a slut if I love sex or dress as sexy as I feel? Do I get a choice in matters that pertain to me? How do I get to eat in peace or buy a pair of shoes freely?
We all ask these questions over and over in our minds but many of us never utter them. We feel defective if we admit our feelings. We get smothered by guilt too easily if we give into our desires.
We feel we do not deserve even the smallest victories, and when they happen to us, we shut down, go manic, get depressed and what have you.
Take the Test.
The next time you feel inclined to indulge yourself, check out your shame crashing your party for even wanting whatever it is that you desire. Give in to your desire. Feel your guilt suffocate you afterward. It is the part of the darkness in a woman.
For the love of the Goddess, what can be done?
I spent time with Goddesses that are on the fast track to their best selves. The women in my life are wise; they are very successful or are opening the door to great lifetime successes. In my recent conversations with them, we all concurred that success was actually making us depressed.
Inside me, this depression went beyond the feelings of transition — an old aspect of creation dying to a new reality with different responsibilities. No. This felt like disease.
But I am happy, I am really happy.
So how come I felt the need for permission to be happy because for some reason my inner Mother Goddess judged otherwise? My inner Mother Goddess is based on my parental figures being an evil hag and a cripple, so I am already fucked in the happy department. I have to work on it hard.
So when I spent quality time with a little libation and some meditation after my heart was exposed to fierce women of love, truth and glory, I began to see all the places shame was hidden. I saw shame written on all the toe tags of the best parts of myself that were murdered in cold blood.
I feel shame when I spend money, when I don’t eat clean, when I don’t exercise… you know, the usual suspects. But I also feel shame when I love someone and when someone loves me. I feel shame when someone else does something wrong that is in some way related to me.
I feel shame when I tell sad people how well I am doing. I feel shame so much so that my doctorate degree has yet to be framed, but is sitting under a stack of old tax information (what a metaphor).
So when I held my hand a little longer to the flame, I realized that my success-induced depression is based in shame.
Shame is the only tether that can hold a person back from their greatest joy and being able to actually soak it in. Shame has often been mistaken as modesty just like a healthy dose of confidence has been mistaken as an over active ego.
When a goddess creates something, there is no shame in it. It is a beautiful thing, even if it is ugly to someone else. We have our own interpretations, motivations, and evolution.
There is plenty of space for all aspects of the goddess, but we have yet to believe that. So we take the smallest crumbs of happiness and martyr ourselves thinking it is the right thing to do. All it does is create a victim mentality that gets everyone slapped around in some way or another.
No longer will I season my food, look at my naked body, taint my relationships or my vagina with shame. The switch has been flipped, my scope is magnified.
Even though I will be able to see it more clearly, there are some practices that I need to put in place so that I can properly heal.
Here is what I plan to do. I want you to practice this with me. Tell me how it has helped you…
1. I will identify moments when I feel shame immediately.
Yesterday I sat by a stream and wrote all identifiable ways I felt shame on one side of a sheet of paper. On the other side, I wrote loving promises to myself as antidotes.
For example: Side One: I feel shame when I spend money. Side Two: I will spend money consciously and freely.
Each side needs a solution. Each aspect needs to attain balance.
2. I will be honest about my feelings and own my shit.
I have a hard time discussing how I feel about things sometimes. So, instead of beating around the bush, and saying what I think the other person wants me to say, I will be honest even when it hurts.
I will own all of my thoughts, feelings and actions without attaching definitions that will ultimately diminish my value.
3. I will celebrate my victories without guilt.
As a little girl, whenever something amazing happened in my life, I was either punished for it, or it was taken away from me before it could come to fruition. I will recognize the triggers that prevent me from receiving all good things that I deserve.
I will honor the fruit of my hard efforts with extravagant self-love. I will display my doctorate degree and buy the book I was published in last year.
4. I will love myself as I love others.
I have one of those topsy-turvy heart-minds that tend to give out more love than I give myself.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind between my mother telling me to shut up and a date rape attack, I thought the safest option for me was to just love other people and reject the love given to me by glossing over it.
After countless clinical trials of failed relationships, weight gained and lost, and finally diabetes diagnosed, I have learned that this is not the right approach. I will be fiercely protective of my personal time, I will say No when I need to. I will foster intimacy with myself during times of solitude.
I will make myself laugh. I will have hopes and dreams for myself. I will be my top priority and never compromise my needs for others.
5. I will receive.
I noticed that shame clogs all of the receptors to blessings. So as I go through the cleansing process, I will amplify my channels to receive. I will absorb the beauty of life and not hold anxiety on a pedestal, catering to its every whim. I will remember that the love I extend is the love that I deserve.
My work holds high value and I deserve to be honored for honorable efforts. I will accept the fact that I am unique and beautiful, and revel in the joy that I feel when others notice me.
I will open my heart to receiving truth in areas that are hard to hear, seeing this as an act of love, not a shaming punishment.
The Antidote.
Love always takes the sting out of every painful moment. We are never too old cry when it hurts, and have our wounds kissed better. Goddesses, we are a tribe. It is our duty to do this for one another. Let us love one another. This the greatest act of self-love.
For the comfort we give to one another, is the healing we receive manifold.
*****
Anjana Love Dixon is a Spiritual Thought Leader, Interfaith Minister, Psychologist, and holds a doctorate in divinity. In 2012 Anjana launched The Anjana Network, the home base of her wisdom writings. It is from this place that she delivers deeply personal reflections of her journey to wholeness, inspires change, and provokes thought. Through sharing influential insights through interviews, articles, and her unique connection to the world, Anjana has become an internationally renowned wisdom writer and cited spiritual thought leader with contributions to major online publications including Rebelle Society, Elephant Journal, Match.com, and HuffPost Live. Anjana is a member of The Beautiful Writer’s Group with Danielle LaPorte and Linda Sivertsen and is currently preparing for the launch of her second book, Start in The Dark: Soul Work for Opening the Heart and Creating a (Real) Life.
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