Part of my mindful self-compassion journey has included time spent reflecting on shame. The following was shared in a private online space with my most recent meditation cohort and I am posting here to share more broadly.

So much of the (maladaptive) shame I have experienced, currently experience and will likely continue to experience is not mine to hold. What I mean is that shame I experience does not simply arise from me thinking that I ‘am’ bad but arises from others telling me that I am wrong or bad or not good enough. That I need to work harder but not too hard or I’ll seem desperate, be emotionally available but if I’m taken advantage of it is my fault because I was too vulnerable. I should dress more like a ‘woman’, show some skin but not too much or I’m a slut whose asking for it and deserves any sexual violence that comes my way. It does not matter that I do not identify as a woman. To many people, that I look like one (a woman) is evidence enough for them to feel justified to hold me to the same impossible standards. A non-binary identity does not absolve me of these standards others put on me and at times is used to justify further harm on account of the how I ‘incorrectly’ display gender. I am (in the words of Hannah Gadsby) ‘incorrectly female and that, is a punishable offense’. Male or Female? Pick a box or else I don’t exist.

Messages from society, media, family, people I do not know, people I do know, are hurled with such velocity that the initial sting can be disorienting. It lingers. And the pain makes it hard or even impossible to forget. What makes it worse is how most people are not even doing it ‘on purpose’. It is completely unintentional and I am reminded how doing nothing more than existing outside of the status-quo is reason enough to be seen as inhuman, to be cast aside, experiences and knowledge disregarded. Reminding myself of my privilege does nothing but fuel my anger that so many more people experience what I am feeling now – more frequently and with more vitriol.

So yes, shame is a universal emotion but who gets to decide who feels shame, for what purpose and why? And that the need for reminders of safety and the provision of tools to ‘close’, to safely exit a mindful practice when feelings are too much to bear speaks to while shame may be universally experienced by every single person on this planet, it is not identical in frequency or intensity nor are the triggers the same.

At times, my shame is so great that my brain shuts itself off from my bodily intensity that is shame; sending my mind into a default mode dialed up to hyper-speed. It is this internal cognitive chaos that I notice; my body’s cunning ability to distract me from the intense pain with light-speed ruminations and existential conundrums that makes me realize ‘ah, I must be feeling shame’. A brief second of silence ensues, allowing me to drop into my body long enough only to confirm the shame my body already knows. And then, I must exit and begin the work of reminding myself that this shame is not mine to hold.