Toxic Shame

Toxic Shame

What Is It: For thousands of years, Indigenous and Tribal Shamans often went through a Debilitating Mysterious Illness as apart of their 'Initiatory Process'. It was through this Disease that they often began to learn and understand the complexity of the Mind, Body, and Soul connection relative to health and overall wellness.

Within our Modernized Western Society, we are now seeing many individuals with a 'Healer's Calling' go through this same process. Unfortunately, this can often be very confounding and confusing as there is no true Eldership within our Society to guide this initiation and provide understanding as to what is happening.

Many times within our Western Medical System, we will be diagnosed with Chronic Lyme Disease, Fibromyalgia, CFS, etc.. We can be given heavy dosages of Antibiotics and other medications that actually exacerbate and worsen our condition.

How Does It Happen- Many of us hold 'Toxic Shame' within our systems due to events that occurred in early childhood. This is often due to the fact that as children we lack 'object permanence' so we begin to perceive that the way we're treated or talked to has everything to do with us and is rarely due to factors outside our control.

You do not need to be explicitly told 'You're bad' to incur Shame. In fact, much of the way we are left to carry the burden of 'Shame' is due to how people (especially our primary caretakers) interact with us implicitly. 

This means anytime our own Needs or Boundaries are ignored/violated at a young age, we can begin to internalize it as 'something must be wrong with me'. Also, many of us can grow up in cultural environments or Religious Communities which are very 'Shame/Fear-Based'. Normal occurring human desires/responses are treated as 'wrong/bad'.

How Does It Happen (Part 2)- Make no mistake, the energy of 'Toxic-Shame' is often of a Generational Nature. If we come from ancestral lines which endured Slavery, Genocide, or Exile then it is very likely our family members are carrying a lot of 'Shame' within their systems.

Unfortunately, much of our Parents and Grand-Parents Generations lacked the tools and resources to understand how to work with and process this emotion. Most of them were stuck in states of severe survival-stress and are not even consciously aware they're carrying 'Toxic-Shame'.

What often ends up happening in these family dynamics are members will want to pass the 'Shame' off as if it's a game of 'Hot-Potato'. They will often find fault in their partner or children no matter what they do, or they will be vicariously living through their kids as they lack their own sense-of-self.

How It Impacts Us- The energy of 'Shame' is one of Inner-Disgust and Stagnancy. We will often house it within our Lower Energy-Centers and it can even feel like we're holding a dark gooey-like substance in our lower abdomen and hips.

Many of us will adapt by disconnecting from this part of our bodies. We won't feel as physically present and can even find ourselves in chronic states of Fight-or-Flight. If we incurred heavy amounts of 'Shame' at a young age, then it's likely our Upper Energy-Centers did not develop healthily as well and will have large distortions in them.

This will look like individuals who feels helpless/powerless to change their life circumstances or go through extreme measures to feel worthy and are always chasing external validation. They will often have a closed heart or their heart will accept anyone who chooses them (no matter how toxic).

How It Impacts Us (Part 2)- At its root, 'Toxic Shame' hinders an individual's ability to develop a healthy Sense-of-Self. This often leads to severe Co-Dependency and stepping into a continuum of toxic relationships and unhealthy work-place environments.

Since we were shown our naturally occurring feelings/emotions, desires, and beliefs were wrong, we can never fully trust ourselves. This leads us very vulnerable to predatory individuals and continuing to endure cycles of Narcissistic-Abuse even in adulthood. Unfortunately, some will adapt to this by becoming the abuser themselves or just shut themselves down from any form of connection and relationships in order to feel safe.

We will often have a very harsh inner-critic and will face a constant stream of thoughts that guilt us for experiencing the very things we were shown not to when we were younger.

'Toxic Shame' & Awakening- As previously stated, most of us go through our lives finding ways to constantly avoid experiencing our 'Internalized-Shame'. We can do this by overly attaching our value/worth to status-symbols, succeeding in our careers, or constantly care-taking/fixing our romantic partners.

Yet, when we're on a journey to 'Ascend' in Consciousness we will be unable to carry a lot of our 'Shame' with us into that next phase. What ends up often occurring is we lose the very things we were using to distract us from our own 'Toxic Shame'. Many of us can be overwhelmed when this occurs as we feel unprepared to process this emotion and can find ourselves disassociating/escaping even more.

If we don't know how to work with our 'Shame' it can even lead us into 'Spiritual Narcissism' after an Awakening and we can become even more disconnected/separated from our True-Self.

Transmuting/Healing 'Toxic Shame'- If we have the tools and resources to work with the energy of 'Shame' within our Physical Bodies and Energy Fields, then we won't need to constantly be triggered in our external reality to access and work with this part of ourselves. 

We heal our Shame not by running away from it or brute-forcing our way into more positive thought patterns, but rather accepting its presence and then cultivating a compassionate understanding around its existence.

We also must utilize our 'Somatic Experiencing' tools to teach the body how to begin to feel and experience 'Shame' without becoming overwhelmed and spiraling in it. But simply accessing the feeling and somatically moving it out isn't enough. We need to be able to practice Heart-Based compassion for ourselves while consciously taking tangible action in our lives to give ourselves what we were once unable to.