As you read this, I will be holed up in quite a lovely hotel suite with some of my favorite women on the planet.

These women chose to work with me for a full year, declaring that 2013 is the year where they work some serious magic.

I love them so much.

But today I want to talk about something I loathe.

Shame.

Shame is that deep sick twisting in your gut that tells you that you SUCK.

And that everyone else is probably talking about you.

And about how much you suck.

It’s feeling like you should be embarrassed even to exist.

It’s a certainty that everything good about you is canceled out by your horrifying aspects, like your hair and your personality and your general mortifying character.

Shame whispers vague, irrefutable things like: 

• You should have known better.
• That’s how it’s always going to be for you.
• It’s no more than you deserve.
• It’s all your fault.
• There’s just something wrong with you.
• Why did you expect anything different?

Fun stuff, right?

I don’t spend nearly as much time in shame as I used to.

For years, I stoked my fiery shame embers non-stop.

Not to be dramatic, but it was excruciating beyond words.

I’m happy to say that with the magic of therapy, coaching, and some flat-out mystery, I hardly ever feel ashamed anymore.

Even when I royally fuck something up, which happens on a fairly regular basis, I have learned the gentle art of being kind to myself and applauding mistakes.

No exaggerating, folks, this is the secret to the UNIVERSE.  

So this week I want to talk about what to do when shame strikes.  Because even when you’ve cleaned up a lot of the crud in your life, shame can still show up out of the blue.

Here are some common shame triggers:

• A missed deadline.
• A no.
• Snarky commenters on your Facebook page.
• Confidentiality breached.
• A rejection letter.
• Not being invited somewhere.
• A letter from an ex.
• Your child’s public temper tantrum.

Shame is highly flammable, toxic to your health, and usually flares up when you least expect it.

And you handle it just like you would any conflagration:

Stop, Drop, and Roll.

Stop

When you feel that sick nausea of shame wash over you, you absolutely MUST stop what you’re doing.  Don’t try to carry on when your insides are roiling.  Excuse yourself for a minute, step outside, pour yourself a drink of water.  However you need to, create a little pause for yourself.

Drop 

As soon as you can, go to a safe place and drop into your body.  Let yourself feel what you’re feeling.  Your bedroom, a bathroom stall, your office– go somewhere that you’ll be alone and unwatched.  Let yourself crumple.  Instead of pushing through that sick feeling in your stomach, let it move through you.  It will, I am sorry to say, feel AWFUL.  Feel it anyway.

Roll 

Once you’ve made room for it inside yourself, you can step back and examine what’s going on. What triggered the shame?  Do you truly believe the things you’re saying silently about yourself?  Would you ever say such cruel things to someone you cared about?  Would you let someone say them to a beloved child?  If the answer is no, then rock yourself back and forth with kindness.  Wrap yourself in a blanket of tenderness.  Shower yourself with gentleness.

Call upon the part of you who, as Anne Lamott would say, is militantly and maternally on your own side.

This is where you may need to bring in a compassionate witness, especially if you haven’t cultivated one in your own heart yet who is badass enough to blow those mean thoughts out of the water.

A loving friend, a loyal ally, someone who believes in you– this is the time to make a call and let them remind you of how THEY see you.

Ultimately, you want to cultivate this compassionate witness within yourself.  Grow an aspect of yourself who will always speak to you in the kindest of tones.  Who will wrap your own deep love around the most tentative parts of yourself.

When you can invite the multitudinousness of yourself to the table, something beautiful starts to happen.  

The next time you’re feeling awful, one part of you will chime in, with great eagerness and curiosity and outrage, “Oh my gosh!!!  You’re in the shame spiral!  This isn’t real!  It’s just shame shit!!!”

That might not seem like a lot, but it’s actually HUGE.

Because shame thrives on invisibility.

As soon as you notice that you’re feeling ashamed, you’ve done 97% of the hard work.

Big lovely parts of you will spring into action with sandwiches and hot thermoses of soup.

I kind of think that much of our suffering is there to activate those kindly parts of us: the ones with the cool dippers of water, and the knowing grin, and the loving hands.

When we start to treat ourselves like the dearly beloveds, something holy happens.