Dealing with Shame and Self-Criticism - The Embodied Way
Do you have somewhere in life where you feel like you’re not measuring up? Where you’re being hard on yourself? Feeling bad about something that happened? Or feel like you’re failing in some area?
Perhaps you’ve got a juicy goal in mind, but you just keep procrastinating.
Or maybe you’re holding a lot of regret or self-criticism about something you did (or didn’t do) in the past.
Let’s talk about the truth behind these emotions.
What’s really going on when we are feeling self-critical, experiencing shame or regret, or holding ourselves to impossibly high standards and then being hard on ourselves when we don’t measure up?
Often when we have these thoughts, our first reaction is to want to fix or solve the “problem.” (Which often means we are judging ourselves as the problem, and we must be deficient in some way that needs to be fixed).
When we try to approach it from the level of the mind, our energy goes up into our head and often gets stuck there, swirling around, as we try to figure out a solution with logic and analysis.
We might try to make a plan or a list or a schedule to get “control” of ourselves.
We might try to reason our way out of shame or regret, pushing it away or dismissing it with rationalization (I shouldn’t feel that way because…).
We might throw up our hands and think “that’s just me, or that’s just the way it is.” Even though that doesn’t seem to make it go away.
These mental strategies don’t always work. Sometimes they fall flat, sometimes they feel rigid and stressful. Sometimes the uncomfortable feelings just eventually pop up again. Meanwhile a part of us might feel like it’s dying inside.
The truth is in the feeling.
In my experience, trying to deal with self-criticism at the level of the mind can be a way of avoiding the tender felt sense and true emotional depth of our experience.
We absorb lots of messages that we “shouldn’t” be self-negating, we should be positive! And love ourselves! And yet these feelings are present in the body. We can’t think our way out of them, as much as we try.
When we try to avoid the uncomfortable feelings that are present in the body, this energy doesn’t just go away. It stays frozen in the body, creating areas of tension.
The sensations and emotions are not allowed to complete, so they become like the snooze on your alarm, popping up every so often, keeping you suspended – neither fully awake nor able to sleep.
If we are willing to meet these sensations at the level of the feeling body, and go fully into the messy experience of our uncomfortable emotions, they are allowed to be liberated and integrated. Then we can move forward from wholeness.
By unwinding the layers of emotional tension, we can come back to our essential selves, and the place where our clarity and truth live. We are able to create something new instead of being stuck in the same experience over and over again.
What is the truth underneath the tender layers? What emerges when we open to fully meet the shame, blame or self-criticism?
Here are two common possibilities.
++If you feel into these uncomfortable emotions of shame, regret, or self-criticism, underneath you might find that something is not aligned. Something is not in integrity with your authentic truth.
Shame or self-criticism might be a result of “should’s” we are carrying from our families, religion, or culture that aren’t aligned with OUR truth.
Regret or self-criticism might be present when we are holding ourselves to an unrealistic expectation based on a definition of success that exists outside ourselves.
We might find we aren’t measuring up because we are trying to fit into a paradigm that we are no longer in resonance with.
When we discover that something is not aligned with our essential truth, we can then be free to release it and allow it to fall away. It no longer holds a charge, and we can then move forward from the truth of our hearts.
This might look like letting go of the story that “in order to deserve love I have to be perfectly good.” Seeing the essential truth that you are worthy of love. Not even despite your mistakes, but because you are whole, and perfectly imperfect, and simply because you ARE. Then you are free to make decisions based on the embodiment of your full self-worth.
It might look like understanding that your definition of success during this quarantine is for your family to stay as safe as possible, and to take things day by day while keeping everyone’s sanity intact. And that your priorities are maintaining your income and your family relationships. From that place of truth you can see clearly what demands you can set down. The self-criticism loses its charge because you are connected with your essential truth.
++Alternatively, the truth that emerges from beneath the tender layers of shame, regret, or self-criticism might be that we fear stepping into a bigger experience of ourselves and our lives. We fear what it means for this new expanded identity to be emerging.
Stepping into a bigger experience of life means more. Maybe more money, love, or joy, but also more responsibility, more being seen, more vulnerability, and more risk.
Sometimes our shame, regret, or self-criticism are stories we play out to hide from stepping into our power. If we don’t measure up, or carry shame and self-criticism, it keeps us busy and distracted from the real fear of what expansion means.
It’s easier to not face all the challenges and repercussions of what it means to be expanding into something greater, bringing more of our fullness and authenticity to the world.
Self-criticism or thinking we aren’t enough, are familiar patterns, maybe even habitual. And what is known feels safe, even if it’s keeping us small.
We often settle for less to maintain this sense of safety, rather than step out into the unknown towards what we truly desire.
When we discover that underneath self-criticism, regret, or shame, is fear of what it means to expand into a new identity, we are then free to meet the challenges of stepping into a bigger experience of ourselves and our lives.
This might look like writing and publishing an article even though you don’t know exactly what to say or how it will land.
It might look like letting go of relationships that are no longer aligned, creating space for greater connection and intimacy to come through.
It might look like claiming your full expression + voicing your desires, your truth, or sharing your message with the world.
Three steps to alchemizing shame + regret into fuel for expansion
So how do we unwind these uncomfortable layers of shame, blame, and self-criticism to get to our essential truth?
The next time you feel a wave of these emotions coming up I invite you to try out these three steps:
1. First, recognize that these feelings aren’t a problem.
You don’t need to be “fixed.” The things you’re beating yourself up over aren’t a problem to be solved and neither is your feeling bad about them. They simply mean you are in a moment of growth. They are showing you opportunities for expansion into greater truth.
2. Bring the energy down out of your mind, set aside solution-based reason and analysis, and open to simply FEEL what is present in your body, from the inside out.
See if you can be available to the sensations of shame, blame, regret, or self-criticism. What is the texture of them in YOUR body? Can you feel them from the inside out?
Let yourself go deep into the messy middle of it. Be a yes to feeling what is there instead of jumping right into fixing (avoiding feeling) mode. As you open to acknowledge and meet these emotions, you allow them to complete, opening up space to connect with your essential self.
3. From that place of greater clarity, ask yourself:
>>Are the hard thoughts I’m having towards myself really true?
>>What deeper truth am I being asked to feel or acknowledge?
>>What might I be able to release with this greater clarity?
>>What new truth does my deepest heart desire to embody?
Acknowledging, welcoming, sensing, and expressing these uncomfortable emotions of shame and self-criticism is so powerful and illuminating.
Opening your heart to feel and liberate all of this brings you back into greater flow and connection to your essential truth that lives beneath all the layers of tension. From there you can move forward with clarity and alignment with YOUR truth. You can expand towards your desires with greater flow.
What are you taking from this? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!
