Devotion
Devotion can also be seen as discipline, determination, or commitment. It is a willingness to do the inner work and create internal structures which support emotional regulation and a stable internal holding environment. For some, devotion may look like a relationship to a higher power. This higher power may invoke internal strength to see oneself differently and identify with a greater sense of self, rather than the shame. Devotion also includes wellness and embodiment rituals which allow you to feel grounded and vitality. A baseline of holistic health in important in order to process and heal painful deep rooted belief systems. There ends up being extreme enmeshment in the psyche and limited capacity to discern between the different parts if there isn’t a baseline of wellness and nervous system regulation. Devotion ultimately is the commitment to take action steps in alignment to one’s highest energetic potential so that there is potential for growth, optimization, and greater fulfillment.
Knowing Shame
The ability to label what is happening within your inner experience is vital for emotional regulation. Once you notice shame in your experience, there is a choice to relate to it from a greater perspective and with compassion. Wholeness is embodied when the totality of inner experience is held with acceptance and awareness. If you aren’t aware of how shame somatically, emotionally, and cognitively shows up in your experience- it may be challenging to create psychic space to relate to it maturely. You may believe you are the stories of not being enough. Even if you are familiar with shame, you may fall into the traps of shame because it is an insidious emotion and experience which runs deep within the unconscious psyche. Shame healing requires devoted self inquiry, educating oneself about shame, and discovering the baseline means of regulating your nervous system when it is triggered. The aim isn’t to be ‘free’ from shame, but to find freedom within- which requires knowing shame. There is potential for greater resilience and wholeness and comfort with discomfort when you devote yourself to studying it.
Inner Child Healing
The foundation of inner child healing is meeting self with unconditioned compassion. Compassion acknowledges intrinsic goodness or wholeness. It is identifying as Love instead of the wounding. When the system is in hyper sympathetic activation, there is a process to shift from dorsal vagal-freeze response into ventral vagal-social engagement response. Each individual has a unique process to regulate their system. When you are in a fight, flight, freeze mode compassion may not be your first instinct. In this case it is essential to develop a skillset of working with your system to discover baseline balance. Then contacting shame or dysregulation with kindness and warmth is essential for healing or discharge of painful feelings.
When there is a feeling of vulnerability- there is a great chance the wounded inner child is present and asking for attentiveness. Sometimes the system may become really noisy, as a means of an attempt to be held. Shame is the wounded inner child. It is the child who was not met with the love or acceptance it required during early years in order to develop a cohesive stable sense of self. When shame arises it is the inner child longing to mature into secure attachment within self. Secure attachment happens through radical self acceptance and consciously meeting dysregulation. It is taking on the role of the internal parent again and again and again. Without addressing the deep seated roots of where shame originates from, it will continue to lurk in the unconscious psyche and manifest through intense emotional and somatic pain. By addressing, exploring, investing, and intimately meeting it- it begins to loose it’s charge and integrate into embodied wholeness.
Authenticity
In Webster’s Dictionary it defines authenticity as not being false or copied; it’s genuine or real. I define authenticity as raw innocent expression. It is to be energetically naked, without a mask or covering up what is alive in one’s system. As soon as there is an attachment to ‘this is what my authentic self looks or feels like’ it is most likely not authentic, because authenticity is dynamic and impermentant. It may take courage to be seen in your raw expression because mainstream society does not value vulnerability. There are cultural stories such as ‘put a smile on and be happy’ ‘its weak to ask for help’ ‘boys don’t like pink and defiantly aren’t emotional’ ‘it’s not lady like to wrestle or burp’ ‘it’s slutty to be sexually active with more than one person’ ‘being in joy and productivity is better than rest and sadness’.
Because these cultural myths are deeply engrained into the collective and individual unconscious psyche, it may be really challenging to be seen in an expression which challenges the conditioned programing. This is where shame may show up convincing you are not enough or flawed because your authentic expression does not measure up to the expectations set up on yourself. Shame fragments the self, authenticity is coherence. Embracing authenticity, making heart-full contact with what is present, is the embodiment of wholeness- no matter what that looks or feels like. Shame persuades you should be different than how you are, authenticity says this is who I am world! To transform shame into wholeness is to embrace authenticity while holding unapologetic confidence. It is not trying to change or fix the current state of being, it is wholehearted real-ness.
The Secure Sense of Self
So often, when one is struggling with shame it is because there is an unstable sense of self. You may place your self worth in other’s validations or imagined perception of you. This may invoke devastation and disorientation if you don’t feel accepted or liked by another because your self worth is reliant upon them. The aim of imperfect and whole is to develop a stable and secure sense of self through devotion, inner child healing, authentic expression and relating, and knowing shame intimately. The intention is to develop confidence in self regardless of how imperfect or flawed you show up.
