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How Do You Deal With Shame
AllbuddhaBound
Veteran
Often, shame is the result of other people's opinion and it can be a very difficult, all powerful task master. It is perhaps worse when it permeates our feelings about ourselves and we can become an even more forceful bully to ourselves within. It permits no freedom and it is relentless and it loves to see us cower and shrink into ourselves.
For myself, I have learned to simply permit it to be and focus on the really important things in life. But I am wondering how other people deal with it, and what role takes in their lives.
For myself, I have learned to simply permit it to be and focus on the really important things in life. But I am wondering how other people deal with it, and what role takes in their lives.
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•Aware of the feeling of shame in me, I breathe in.
•Smiling to the feeling of shame in me, I breathe out.
http://www.manypathsinterfaithministries.net/reclaiming-our-souls/meditation-for-healing-ouremotions/
I wonder if this works?
A limited time of open contemplation of the causal factors that created the shame to see if any of their links should be undone to prevent it all from happening again.
and
Formal meditation where shame, like any other phenomenon, is allowed to arise, live and fade of it's own accord, unleached from our conditioned impulses to fiddle around with the outcomes.
A certain level of maturity is required to be ashamed about our ignorance and allow others to point out our faults. What else are friends for . . .
and now back to the shaming . . .
Shame about what you are, shame that diminishes your feeling of value as a person, or shame that causes you to feel unworthy of respect or compassion or love; that kind of shame is the other kind, is this what you mean @Allbuddhabound?
Any kind of shame that results in a person regarding themselves as 'less than' or unworthy needs to be rooted out and @How's post was nicely put
That kind of shame is ridiculous, untrue, a smirch against one's own Buddha nature, is a lie and ought to be regarded as one. That kind of shame is the kind that a person tend to believe comes from other people, like a miasma.
It's a tough thing to mature out of the deeply held (and reinforced) belief that we ARE what other people judge us to be. That others can *think* something about us and bammo, that's what we are.
It's like what YOU believe about yourself is second hand to what others believe. Oh, and as IF you really know what they believe (admit it, you are almost convinced you DO know
Thank _____, this is something to outgrow. The truth is, what other people believe about you doesn't change a single hair on your head. They can think really, really hard at you but your hair won't even ripple. It's only when you either believe them, too, or if you haven't yet given yourself PERMISSION to be the one in charge of defining who and what you are.
In the great scheme of things, this is all 'small self' stuff, with only a relative truth to it. Yet, it has it's own momentum and reality, and frankly, if your wife, husband, boss, mother, father or child thinks you are a dimwit and not worth much, it hurts. You might get divorced or fired or abused or taken advantage of. Insisting it's NOT real is a bit stupid, when you are suffering from the unkind sort of shame.
Most, if not all shame-y beliefs are so untrue as to be irrelevant, but they are buried so deep that we need outside help to eject them. Getting some kind of therapy or feedback from your teacher or trusted sangha friend is worth it because YOU are worth it. What a waste, a perfectly good human being, burdened by a heavy weight of nonsense shame
Gassho
I feel it is the emotive attachment to others sense of us and our own sense of self that causes problems/dukkha
Can we be as shameless as Diogenes? Should we be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope
A certain level of maturity is required to be ashamed about our ignorance and allow others to point out our faults. What else are friends for . . .
and now back to the shaming . . .
Shaming someone is entirely different from offering constructive ideas in order to help them. Just saying....
The point of this is that it restores you to 'power', so to speak.
Shame is also just another sensation to rise, decay and cease. It's not a continuous state of experience.
I practise (the very beginning stages) of vipassana or insight meditation. What I would do with shame when it arises is NAME it. I would go to my body, and notice the physical sensations that occur along with the mental (they are actually the same thing, but for the sake of description). I feel most emotional stuff in my chest, belly or throat. It can feel like a pressure, or an ache, even pain. Then, I observe the physical sensation with close attention. It goes on a while, then it starts to decay, die down in intensity. As it fades, it's hard to stay attentive to it, but if you do, you can watch it pop out of existence. It's gone. You still have a big belly, and the shame is gone.
Shame just rises up and dies back. Is it even yours? Where does it come from? Not other people, we already know that. But where in YOU does it come from. While you're there, where are YOU, anyway? What are YOU? You get it
Gassho