Breaking the Cycle of Shame and Redemption
There’s a cycle that many of us go through, over and over again. It goes something like this:
We’re feeling fine, happy even, when something occurs that sets us back. Someone is mean to us, we’re mean to someone, we do something that falls short of our expectations, we have an injury, a setback, an emotional hiccup.
Now suddenly we feel less than fine and less than happy. We feel blocked in a way, and put our focus on moving through the block. There’s a sadness because we are blocked, and there’s a shame: “If only I didn’t feel guilty about this or that, if only I could get over my sadness or shame or despair, I could get back to the happiness.”
The shame is real. Or, real enough, that it is confronting, and we feel a need to get over it, move through it, find ourselves again.
After a period of time- a day, a week, or a month- something happens that brings us back into happiness. A friend or lover tells us how much they love us. We watch a cathartic movie and it triggers us to burst into tears about our own experience. We do good deeds for others, and well up inside, remembering our own innate goodness. We ask for forgiveness from someone we’ve wronged. A million other possible ways that happiness can get reinstated.
Now we’re feeling fine, happy even. And after a period of time, the cycle happens again. Something triggers a collapse, and a feeling of shame arises, prompting the need to journey into wholeness once again.
This cycle, I call the shame and redemption cycle. Being able to move through the sadness, shame or block into redemption or wholeness is a beautiful thing. It takes courage, attentiveness, tenacity, and softness.
For many, this is the cycle of growth- of spiritual evolution. We keep experiencing that we aren’t enough, and then we claw our way out into the light, again and again.
But it has its limitations.
The main drawback to this way of growing is that it is based on the misconception that we aren’t enough in the first place. It is ultimately exhausting, because we have to continually fight our way through to a sense of peace and wholeness. And, the underlying assumption that we aren’t whole, generates itself over and over again, creating the very cycle that we are trying to break.
There is another way, I believe. One that is much more soft, relaxed, efficient, and lasting.
I call it “breathing into wholeness.”
In every part of the cycle I describe above- the initial drop into despair or shame, the struggle to find ourselves, the moment of catharsis and redemption- in every part of the cycle, love is available. We don’t have to wait until the breakthrough part to find self-love. Every step is a doorway into ourselves. An opportunity to receive the innocence and wholeness and wonder of the present moment, whatever is happening- even if we feel shame, blocked, falling short, dread, guilt, longing, resignation. In each of these experiences, we can take a deep breath, and remember that even in the tight places, we can be tender with ourselves. We can be kind, we can breathe sweetness in. We don’t have to wait until the roller coaster comes to a stop, or to get to the good part. Every phase of the cycle is the good part, because we are there in it, available to receive our own kind attention and love.
Love is unconditional. Life gives us conditions, so we can love them. Every part of the shame/redemption cycle is a condition. Every condition can be welcomed and received with tenderness, curiosity, and softness.
How do we do this, in addition to breathing in tenderness? The first step is to notice the pattern- the underlying assumptions that we need to do something, move through something, feel something, earn something, in order to get rid of shame and/or redeem ourselves. By making this pattern conscious, the assumptions can unwind, and we can begin to re-member ourselves as enough, just how we are.
There’s much more to how to do this, which I’ll try to address in another blog. For now, I’ll suggest two avenues. First, wholeness resides within our own bodies. We can always find it inside. And, second, we can’t add one plus one plus one to get to wholeness. We have to start with wholeness, and discover it in every aspect of our experience, especially the “shadowy” parts that are calling out to be received and loved…