Too Shamed to Share

"Shame...we all have it... And the less you talk about it, the more you have it" (Brene Brown)

One of my closest friends ("MT") & I discussed how sharing our struggles/reaching out to others for support is a nascent personal phenomenon for both of us. The rest of the world seems to do it all the time (sometimes a bit too much), but we had work to develop this after painstaking self-reflection, psychosocial introspection, and spiritual questing.

When MT asked what underlay my reserve to outreach during struggle, I was initially dismissive. Wasn't overly eager to plunge down that bunny-pit. But I was caught off-guard when MT suddenly revealed her reasons for her own reserve. It was honesty without defense. It was courage/vulnerability (synonymous, yes?), and it inspired me to plunge into the source of my own reserve - shame.

Growing up, I wasn't one to share my struggles with others. My thought process was this: nobody owes anyone else emotional investment. Emotional investment can be burdensome. I don't have a right to further burden others when they already endure their own. Up until recently, I relished in this "altruistic" habit. But I now realize I was only in denial - that the real source of my reserve was largely fueled my early internalization of 2 messages in childhood (*Caveat: note that the following was caused by the misinterpretations of my conditioned mind (the "ego") more so than other people's actions/intent).

Message #1: "You are not living up to your potential": first, you need to understand that my mother is incredibly  progressive. She never cared for social pressures, and though she was deeply loyal to filial ones, she never imposed filial obligation on me. She didn't believe in living through one's child and wanted nothing more for me than autonomy and competence. She showed by example what it was like to be an ultra-productive/conscious human being. She had a strong will to improve me starting from a young age, and they were all areas that I genuinely needed improvement. However, rather than interpreting her lessons as "I'm very worthy on my own. I have lots of room to grow and become even better", I internalized it as "I'm a wasteland of potential. The 'ideal me' is the real me that I was meant to be, but I always fall short." (This is how the ego works. It distorts even the most earnest and helpful efforts through its lens of insecurity.)

Message #2: "There is something fundamentally wrong with the way you are wired": My mother was wired to help others - for most of her life, that was the driving motivation. She gave generously to those who never gave back and returned 10X to those who did. My disposition was opposite. I was wary of being taken advantage of (after witnessing others take one-sidedly from her) and withheld generosity except for those I thought truly 'deserved' it. This caused a lot of tension, particularly as it related to our relatives. She was distraught that I was detached from relatives who reared me during early childhood. I was frustrated that my mother accepted continual emotional abuse from greedy and controlling people with whom we happened to share DNA. I didn't give in, and I believed my rationale to be sound. But unknowingly, I internalized one implication of our conflict: "Those who have hearts appreciate others' sacrifices. The fact that you can feel so little for those who have sacrificed for you, even if you didn't ask for the sacrifice, means there is something fundamentally wrong with you." (Again, this is how the ego works. It mistakes a learned way of thinking for a fundamental facet of your Being.)

Mix messages #1 + #2, allow them to stew in a societal pressure cooker next to a hearty roast of fear-of-unworthiness, drizzle this with insecurity, and season with validation-seeking, and voila, you create a dish of shame:

#1: I'm not worthy of others' emotional investment or help b/c I am not worthy in general. Not until I reach and live my potential. My successes are more attributed to luck than ability, b/c real ability stems from fulfilling one's potential.

#2: I'm not worthy of others' emotional investment or help b/c what if I turn on them one day? If I find I don't like them in their current/future state, I may ignore their past help & detach b/c that's just who I am. It is difficult to prevent this w/ those who gave unsolicited help, but what I can do is protect the rest by never involving them in the first place.

You can see how the ego shames us into hesitating, withdrawing, closing. Shame dictates so much of what we pursue and just as importantly, what we don't. One doesn't get rid of shame - one becomes resilient to it. Shame needs secrecy, silence, and judgment to grow, but if you douse it with empathy, it can't survive - "the two most powerful words when we're in struggle [are] 'me too'" (B. Brown). I'm learning to become more shame-resilient b/c some incredible people have shown me their "me too" side. So I guess this is my way of paying it forward.