Here’s the good news: there are two secrets to being happy in this world.
Here’s the bad news: they are simple but not easy to do.
Secret Number One: Learn How to Not Be Ashamed of Your Shame
We all feel shame, and it is decidedly unpleasant. In the book Healing the Shame that Binds You, John Bradshaw defines shame as the feeling not that you have made a mistake but the feeling that you ARE a mistake.
We are invited to feel shame when someone corrects our grammar in public. Or when we confess that we don’t know something and someone says, “You are kidding! You don’t know that???”
Any statement that contains a subtext of “you are an idiot!” is a shaming statement. We all have been shamed, and we all have shamed. It is how people control one another. People laugh at us for the way we laugh, so unselfconsciously, we stop laughing. People tell us we can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and we give up singing, sometimes for the rest of our lives.
Shame Isn’t the Problem
But shame isn’t the problem. Our shame about feeling shame is the problem. We feel shame, we feel enormously vulnerable and exposed, and we decide to keep it Secret. If no one knows we are feeling shame, then maybe we can get away with it. Maybe our brokenness, our unlovability, will be known only by us and not the rest of the world.
When we learn not to be ashamed of our shame, when we learn we can say, “I’m feeling shame right now,” then we are free. Our shame will become just another feeling, albeit an unpleasant one, but just a feeling. We confess that, and it will pass. If we try to keep it a secret, then we are marrying it for ever. We are branding it into our souls. It becomes another shameful, ugly scar that keeps us separate from other people.
If you are going to be able to see who you are meant to be clearly, then you’re going to have to be able to feel shame and admit it. If you are afraid of your shame, you will spend your life avoiding any situations that might trigger your shame. Instead of leaning in to who you are meant to become, you will spend your life trying to play it safe. You will never get to know who you really are, and no one else will ever get to know who you really are either.
I told you it was simple but not easy. The next secret is just as challenging.
Secret Number Two: You Can’t Make Anyone Love You or Themselves
Bonnie Raitt, in her song “I Can’t Make You Love Me” says it all. Is there anything more excruciating than loving someone and having them not love you back? Yes, there is something more excruciating than that. Loving someone and watching them destroy themselves through addiction, self loathing, or recklessness.
When you love someone and they are killing themselves with an addiction, it’s like watching a grizzly bear grab them and haul them off to their cave, eating them as they go. There’s nothing you can do but watch. You are there if they decide they want help, but you can’t make them want help.
Loving yourself well and feeling compassion for people who are hurting themselves is as good as it gets. It’s called Detaching With Compassion. It is not easy to do.
But if you spend your life trying to wrestle people’s problems away from them, you will be very frustrated. It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing. It just makes you crazy, and makes the pig mad.
The Truth About Happiness
The happy conclusion: there is no Magic Bullet, as I wrote about yesterday. There is only having the courage to face each day with humility, willingness, compassion, gratitude, and a healthy sense of humor. You will be able to see yourself clearly and those around you clearly. Who you are meant to be will emerge whole and intact, and it will not surprise you. Who You are Meant to Be you will know as an Old Friend, an Old Friend who has been waiting around patiently, perhaps for years, for you to show up.
You Have to Do It By Yourself, But You Can’t Do It Alone.
I love helping people in this process. I love finding a way to shift the “boogga-boogga” that has been stalking you, and getting you to laugh about it. If you can laugh, you can live.
If you’re interested in finding out about my coaching programs, contact me at the vicki@outrageousvisions.com
Blessings,
Vicki