Shame Isn’t the Problem
Our relationship to it is.
Shame as a Portal.
One of the greatest obstacles to our healing isn’t trauma.
It’s not fear.
It’s our resistance to feeling shame.
The moment shame arises — after we’ve done something careless, oblivious, selfish — the ego rushes in. A shield lifts. And it sounds like:
“I didn’t mean to.”
“They misunderstood me.”
“What about what they did?”
This happens almost instantly.
And it’s not because we’re evil. It’s because the ego has one primary directive: self-preservation.
To the ego, feeling shame isn’t just uncomfortable — it’s existential.
Because if something we did was “bad”… what does that make us?
This is where the collapse begins.
When shame becomes personal, identity-based, internalized — it no longer functions as guidance. It becomes distortion.
We don’t say, “That action was out of alignment.”
We say, “I am bad.”
And so we defend.
Or spiral.
Or collapse into victimhood.
Or inflate into superiority.
Jung would recognize all of these as shadow responses — different ways of avoiding contact with what the psyche finds unbearable to hold.
But here's the truth:
Shame is not here to destroy you.
It’s here to show you where you’ve been misaligned — so you can return to the truth.
The problem isn’t shame.
The problem is our belief that
feeling shame means we are shameful.
This is a trick of the ego — and it’s understandable.
The ego builds itself on personalization: “I think this, I feel this, I am this.”
But you are not your shame.
Shame, when met with presence, becomes a teacher.
A compass.
A light that shows you where your sight and understanding was distorted.
Without that light, we live in justification.
Or self-hatred.
Or spiritual bypass.
Either way, we stay stuck in illusion.
When you believe shame means something about you, two false selves emerge:
The one who is bad, broken, and hopeless.
Or the one who is above, justified, and always misunderstood.
Both are false identities built on the same avoidance:
I cannot feel this without losing myself.
But what if that’s not true?
What if shame is something the ego reacts to… but the self can hold?
I’m learning — slowly, often clumsily — that shame doesn’t need to be feared or avoided.
It can be witnessed.
It can be metabolized.
It can be used.
Not to reinforce the old story.
But to shed it.
Because shame doesn’t mean you are wrong.
It means something you did or believed was misaligned —
and you’re now awake enough to see it.
That’s not failure.
That’s grace.
This Week’s Inquiry:
What shame have I been avoiding — by defending, collapsing, or inflating?
What would a positive consequence be in my life if I let shame pass through me — without identifying with it?
What truth about my unconscious might it be pointing me toward?
We all do unskillful things.
You are not special or unique in your “wrongness.”
You are human — and that is the door to compassion.
When we stop defending against shame and begin witnessing it clearly, we don’t lose ourselves.
We find ourselves.
And the world becomes just a little more sane.
Thank you for looking deeper into your own inner-workings.
This work is very important work.
Until next time,
Hayley
