Quote:
Thursday, June 5, 2014
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go
Combating Shame
Shame can hold us back, hold us down, and keep us staring at our feet.
—Beyond Codependency
Watch out for shame.
Many systems and people reek of shame. They are controlled by shame and may want us to play their game with them. They may be hoping to hook us and control us through shame.
We don't have to fall into their shame. Instead, we'll take the good feelings - self-acceptance, love, and nurturing.
Compulsive behaviors, sexually addictive behaviors, overeating, chemical abuse, and addictive gambling are shame-based behaviors. If we participate in them, we will feel ashamed. It's inevitable. We need to watch out for addictive and other compulsive behaviors because those will immerse us in shame.
Our past, and the brainwashing we may have had that imposed "original shame" upon us, may try to put shame on us. This can happen when we're all alone, walking through the grocery store or just quietly going about living our life. Don't think . . . Don't feel . . . Don't grow or change . . .Don't be alive . . . Don't live life . . . Be ashamed!
Be done with shame. Attack shame. Go to war with it. Learn to recognize it and avoid it like the plague.
Today, I will deliberately refuse to get caught up in the shame floating around in the world. If I cannot resist it, I will feel it, accept it, and then be done with it as quickly as possible. God, help me know that it's okay to love myself and help me to refuse to submit to shame. If I get off course, help me learn to change shame into guilt, correct the behavior, and move forward with my life in immediate self-love.
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Shame made me think I was undeserving of recovery. I was the badest of the bad. I came to belief if I take out the sham, all I was left was me. It was up to me as to what kind of 'me' I wanted to be.
The program is applicable to all areas of my life. For years I thought I was just
fine, I am not as bad as him or her and yet on close inspection, I was just as bad or worse. I had to learn that I am not my disease, and whether I am in my space as a recovering alcoholic, I am in the addiction of my childhood and young adult years. I found out in Al-Anon that often family of the A, is sicker than the alcoholic/addict. It is the thinking behind the disease. I can't change them, I don't have the power. I can change myself, I have the power, not me but my Higher Power, who I choose to call God. I found out that God was an old tape for me, I had to build a relationship and make it personal. God doesn't make any junk. A phrase that has stayed with me for many 24 hours.