"I can't. I shouldn't. It's my fault." These self-abasing and self-defeating thoughts are expressions of shame. Because repeated thoughts turn into beliefs and long-held beliefs turn into actions, thoughts rooted in shame can lead to tragedy.
People who live in shame come to believe that it is not okay to make a mistake. They imagine they should know what to do without having to learn it. They think their wrong judgments mean they themselves are wrong.
But it is human to make mistakes. If we acknowledge we are human, we are defining ourselves as people who always have something to learn We are saying we have to keep going if our plans don't work out right away
"Thou shalt not be human" is the command of shame. What rubbish! How can we be anything else? Why would we want to be?
2 comments:
oh. . . I remember the first time it occurred to me that it was alright to make a mistake and that one then learnt far more from that than just getting stuff right without realising why
thank you for the reminder
thank you for the reassurance
Yes, it's important to remember that the things we do are not ourselves. We don't have to do them, or think them, another time!
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