Go Ask Sawyer
Go Ask Sawyer
Shame's Shadow: Revealing Our Authentic Self
Hey y'all, welcome back. Happy Sunday. Go ask Sawyer I'm your host, jamie, and this is my new journaling series that I'm trying out to just start to uncover some emotions childhood traumas, wounds, whatever you want to call it. There's 10,000 words for it now, but I'm just taking you on a journey. For those of you who have a therapist, don't have a therapist, don't know where to start. So what you will need today is your journal something to write with, of course, or your notes app, if you're that kind of girl. I want to type it out or write it out. However you can get your feelings down. I will say pen to paper. There is something so liberating and freeing about writing your stuff down, and for those of you who do say like I don't know what to say, I don't know what to write, I'm going to guide you through it today. You will also need a timer on your phone if that, and then just some time. For me, our focus today is shame and uncovering shame, and I do have a feeling we might come back to this a couple different times, but only because I feel like shame can be so big and it can be so layered, but underneath of it all is our authentic self, and that's what we're trying to get to and get back to so we don't project our hurts on other people. So, to start us out, what you're going to do is you're going to press pause on the podcast, set your timer for three minutes and in your journal you are just going to write until that timer goes off. For three minutes, you can write a letter to yourself, you can write lyrics to a song, you can write this is stupid. Over and over. You can write about what you're doing today. I do not care what you write, I am telling you three minutes, just write it all down and then resume. All right, welcome back.
Speaker 1:So today, again, we are focused on shame, and this is not that I want to say. This is a hard one for me, but this is something that I feel like I have. This is something even my throat is like. I don't want to say it. This is an emotion that I feel like has driven me to do different things, to act different ways, to hide different things, and I don't think what I realized in the beginning of whenever I started doing this is the more you can own up to your shame, like whatever you may have done, which we'll get into today, but the more you can just own it, the less power it has over you. We all do stupid things, we all act out of character, we all act out of alignment, we all maybe hurt people for either intentionally or unintentionally, for different reasons, and then we don't want to talk about it, we want to bury it down. But I'm telling you that feeling will stay with you and it will never release and it will show up in different areas of your life and just kind of like distort or ruin different things.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when we are looking at our shame, we need to remember that shedding, peeling back layers, requires honesty. I'm not asking you to be honest with me, I'm not asking you to go out and tell all your friends all your things, but being honest with yourself and I think that is really hard to do Because once we start to become honest with ourself, then it's like you can't look away from it, right, like once you tell yourself I shouldn't be at this job. Like if you're talking to your friends, like oh my gosh, I hate my job and blah, blah, you're like talking about it you can kind of pretend that conversation didn't happen and then move on with your day and go back to your job and, just you know, have a great time. But once you sit with yourself and realize like I shouldn't be at this job anymore, like this job is sucking me dry, that personal conversation with yourself you can't get rid of, you can't go away from. So you got to get honest with yourself.
Speaker 1:When we think about shame, how do we bring it on ourselves, right? And then, how do other people make us feel shame? And I did ask a few friends this exact question and it kind of came back the same every time I feel shame when I'm out of alignment with myself or when I behave in a way that isn't true to me, maybe gossiping, maybe lying, cheating, even the smallest thing. I littered the other day. I know this is really stupid, but I littered and I just kept walking. I thought about it all day long. I was like, why would I litter? Why would I do that? The earth is so dirty and disgusting the way it is, why would I add to that? And I know that that's like a okay, jamie, but I'm just giving an example, right, that was me bringing shame on myself.
Speaker 1:And then, when do other people make us feel shame, and I guess that one I'm still trying to answer because I feel like when someone is making me feel shame or me feel bad about something, oftentimes I'm noticing it's a projection, right? It's something either they would never do, like oh my gosh, I would never cheat on my husband or wife or girlfriend or boyfriend, or I would never steal from that store or it could also be something that they would want to do, like, again, their shadow self. But instead of like acknowledging, like huh, if the circumstance is right, I might do the same thing they're going to make you feel bad about it, right? So also, being able to discern between someone is projecting on me and I really don't feel bad about what I did, like I'm good, or I already have enough shame. I don't actually need you to shame me because you are not in control of me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so today we're really going to focus on the first one bringing shame on ourself. And how do we move through and move past that? So Proverbs 11.2 says when pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. So it's one thing to have your pride get in the way and to do something that you don't really like. Again, we'll bring shame back You're embarrassed of, you're ashamed about, but it's another thing to be able to own up to it. There's so much power when we're able to say like, yep, I did that, I did, I own it and I did it and I'm going to learn from it and I'm going to move forward. There's so much power in that. Then, once you take that, no one else can take that from you.
Speaker 1:I want you to think of a moment right now in which you've done something that you are just not proud of, that, like in your heart of hearts, you're like I pray to God nobody finds out about this. Think of that moment. And then I want you to say it out loud I didn't pay taxes, I did Just give me an example. I want you to say it out loud. I want you to put your hand on your heart and I want you to say it out loud again I, oh my gosh, I do have a lot of things that I could say, but I don't know if I'm there yet. Okay, I don't know if I'm there yet to share it with my 10 listeners. Okay, I don't know if I'm there yet, but if we ever meet in person, I promise I'll say it out loud. And then I want you just to say I forgive you, like. Repeat it again, say it out loud, I forgive you. Say it out loud again.
Speaker 1:Hand to heart, what have you done that has brought shame to you that you know you were so out of alignment? The strongest way out of shame is through trusting yourself. It's got to start with you owning up to it and trusting yourself. The only way out of darkness is to turn the light on right. What is that saying? Everything that happens in the dark will always come to light. Holy crap. That has come true for me so many times, so many times, and it is so true. If you do something in secret, if you do something in the dark, I promise you it will come to light. I promise you it will come to light. And that really sucks, anyways. But the way out of the darkness like if you're in it and you're like I got to get out of this turn the light on, speak about it to yourself, start with yourself. And again, I am not saying that you need to tell the world your most shameful things. You can tell that to a therapist, but it really starts with you.
Speaker 1:Like when I started journaling I just started. I was even scared to tell myself the truth, like I was even scared to write some of the things down because I didn't want to face them myself. How much more powerful is it to be like no, I'm going to go through it, I'm going to sit in the darkness, I'm going to sit in this shitty, horrible feeling. I'm going to curl up in a ball and I'm just going to face it and own it. I promise you, as much as it hurts, you will feel so much more empowered and better on the other side. When we do feel shame, sometimes when we hide it, it makes us act out of character, and I'm going to share a story.
Speaker 1:Recently, I had sent a text to someone that was not very nice. They were the receiver of this text and although in the text there was truth in the words of it, some of the words of it, I was in a place of anger and confusion and hurt and sadness and I took all of those emotions and I put it in that text and projected it on that person and you know I sat with it. Whatever. A couple of weeks went by, more light was shown on certain situations and I thought you know what I want to apologize for that because that was not me, like that was not me at my core and although I don't, I didn't actually have to send that apology text, in my heart of hearts I knew that wasn't me and I did not want that to be the last interaction. So I did reach out to say I would like to apologize, but I also had no expectations on the other end. I realized that other person could have been like screw you, I don't want to talk to you, or that other person had blocked me or whatever happened. But, as luck had it, they opened up and said yes, let's talk, and we had a two hour conversation about some really hard things and a lot of beauty came out of it. And no, it was not easy Even for me sitting in it to hear the person say like I didn't deserve that, I didn't deserve that, and to hear and to have them keep asking like why did you do that? And for me to really not have an answer, like I had my explanation but I didn't have a true answer. It was really hard for me to hear that on the other end, but I was like no, I'm going to sit with this because I hurt them right.
Speaker 1:I brought shame on myself by doing something hurtful to somebody else and I was trying to own up to it. Now that, of course, is just one example and yes, I did reach out to the person but it definitely helped kind of project me forward, move me forward. I sat with a lot of shame after my divorce when I decided, when I was trying to decide, if I was going to get divorced or not, I thought I was gay. I didn't know for sure. No one was really helping me. Like how are you in a marriage and you're like I don't know if I'm gay or not. It was bad. But I had a lot of people around me making me feel shameful for who I was and I understand it was out of love because they were like I don't want you to end your marriage, I don't want you to hurt your kids, I don't want you to hurt your husband. At the time bad person. I was shameful, I was wrong and I held that shame with me for a long time that I did all of this stuff and I have since been able to release it.
Speaker 1:But what has maybe been something also that people have made you feel shame about, and a lot of times, shame forces us to abandon parts of ourself, and the more we abandon, the more we have to hide parts of ourself. And I think once you really start digging and seeing this, you'll notice you're less authentic, you're less creative, You're less close to spirit, whoever that is for you. Your voice becomes mute, and not necessarily like you can't talk, but there's just something about your voice and the way you speak that is not. It's all clogged, it's not real. So, as we're nearing the end of this, I really want you to think about and write about after this podcast.
Speaker 1:When has someone made you feel shame? What were you doing? What did you do? Did you deserve that? Or was that project, was that them projecting on you? And then I want you to think about a time when you did something that you felt shameful for that you were like dang, that was not me. And I want you to reflect on that moment and really think about like, and again, this could you could, like this is something I've done with my therapist like gone back into my childhood and tried to remember like the first time I felt shameful for something, and then like how that kind of repeats, repeats, repeats, repeats itself, but like write down that situation that you did, that made you feel shameful, and think about how you can own it and forgive yourself and start to try to move forward from that. And not that we can like go in the past and redo anything, because, like, what's done is done, but it's never too late to say I'm sorry. It's never too late to I mean, maybe the consequences of that might be different, but like it's never too late to say I'm sorry, it's never too late to start again. It's never too late to change your behavior. Right, like, if this situation happened again, how would you want to act differently? How could you embrace the shame that you have done and then let it go? The more that you're able to embrace it and own it and then let it go, the clearer, I promise you guys, the clearer you will become.
Speaker 1:Shedding anything requires so much honesty and again it happens with you. First, notice, when you're writing, how often you aren't actually writing your feelings Because, again, you're still hiding from yourself. So often we hide from ourselves. So, before I did, this card just flew out. I pulled up my deck, so I'm going to leave us with a card before we go for the day.
Speaker 1:Stars in the sky limitless possibility, stars in the sky. I just love stars. I absolutely love looking at the sky at night and seeing all those stars and thinking like, wow, nature is amazing. When you look up into the velvety dark blanket of the night sky covering the vast expanse of space, can you count all the stars twinkling above? Can you imagine that you are only glimpsing a teeny sliver of what is actually there? This is the domain of limitless possibility, of the never-ending sea of potential that you yourself are made of and have now at your disposal.
Speaker 1:Your life right now is alive with possibility and needs your clear focus to home in on what avenue of exploration most calls to you.
Speaker 1:It's time to choose and not be distracted by the sheer magnitude of what might be. Be here now. Gather your thoughts and your most cherished dreams. Focus on the brightest star in your never-ending sky and take small steps, small movements, toward calling in this glittering potential into reality. If you can imagine this and hold that vision, you will summon all the celestial helpers and guides to aid you bringing it into fruition. Keep your focus on the essence of potential rather than the form of it. The universe has its own ideas of how best to serve you and all of us at the same time. Trust this as fact rather than theory, and you ought not act surprised when your dreams come true, for they surely will, exactly how you need them to. You guys, embrace the shame, embrace this opportunity to sit with yourself and write and be true to yourself. If you cannot truly love every single part of you, how do you expect to show others how to love you? All right, y'all. Stay cute, stay loud, keep dancing even when everyone else is watching Peace.