Removing the power of shame #Covid/#Lockdown Diaries

Brené Brown said " Shame is the most powerful master emotion. It’s the fear that we're not good enough."

The feeling of shame comes from the belief that, "I am basically flawed, inadequate, wrong, bad, unimportant, undeserving or not good enough." At some early point in our lives, most of us absorbed this false belief that causes the feeling of #shame.

The Pixar movie #InsideOut is a magical story that cleverly encapsulates the emotions of a little girl who embarks on a new journey in life and her journey is captured through the display of various human emotions. The emotions that we experience daily such as joy, anger, sadness, fear , disgust were all portrayed in the movie but not the shame emotion.

Mary C. Lamia Ph.D. explains that shame is not included as a basic emotion because it is not regarded as having universal facial expression. And that we can become ashamed of being ashamed…..even if shame is not something to feel shame about…….individuals tend to hide what they feel, including from researchers and others.

I could not always talk so freely about shame. There was a period in my young life growing up in a neighborhood on the “wrong side of the tracks” , raised by an ailing grandmother on a social grant, we went to bed hungry most days and could not afford the R2 school fees. This reality filled me with such deep shame and so I never felt good enough. It was only in my teenage years that I realized that I had done nothing wrong and that I had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I appreciated that I grew up in a community surrounded by wisdom , I learnt how to stay safe , my grandmother raised me with love and discipline that transformed me into the remarkable individual that I am today. And I say a daily prayer of gratitude for the social grant that we survived on.

One of my favorite quotes is by Buddah and it reads “ When you realise how perfect everything is You will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky”.

I knew that I had finally shrugged off the shame emotion when someone tried to unsuccessfully shame me by spreading a false rumor about me to a group of “friends/sisters”.Those old emotions of shame/I am not good enough tried to surface to silence me ….but I was so grounded and confident in my reality and truth that try as I could I failed to embrace that emotion of my old friend shame.

After listening to the individual's explanation of "what was actually said" , I immediatley made a choice to move on and forgive……walked out of the meeting room tilted my head back and laughed at the sky.

#StaySafe #StayHome #Covid19reflections #Gratitude