My shame diet

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When shame binds you up it’s time for a ‘shame diet’

Several years ago, I had a professional manicure and it was yummy. It was fun to have fancy fingers for a while. It was even better to have rid myself of some shame I had carried for a very long time. I went on a ‘shame diet’ that day.

A shaming experience

I realized in the mist of my manicure what it was that kept me from having the experience sooner in my life. When I was in high school way back a thousand years ago, in speech class we had to do a demonstration speech. I was a very awkward freshman that year.

One of my classmates was in a cosmetology program and she did a demonstration speech on doing a manicure and asked for a volunteer. I was up in the front and offered. But she took one look at my fingernails and made a disparaging comment about my nails and found someone else.

I recall looking down at my fingernails and the shame I felt looking at them.

I don’t recall anything else about her speech except her arguing with the teacher about whether it was ok to cut cuticles or not…she said it was and the speech teacher said NO!

So, I asked my manicurist that day whether it was ok or not since I wondered all those years. And yes, Mrs. grumpy whatever your name is speech teacher, it is ok to cut cuticles!

Shame keeps us, kept me locked up inside and away from fully living life.

That comment and my shame about my nails kept me from having someone give me a manicure for so many years!

Comments we make towards others can have dramatic effects on them. I understand that the student needed an easier set of fingernails to tackle for her 3-minute speech. I don’t blame her at all. But, that comment made in front of a whole classroom of people stayed with me all those years.

Midlife Tools For Living: My ‘shame diet”

What I did as the manicurist worked on my nails was to tell her a bit of my story which allowed me to release the shame I had carried all those years…finally and thankfully too!

We all experience shame in life in varying degrees. It’s just a part of the human condition.

Circumstances come together in ways that affect us. I might have been able to brush off that comment if other things had been different in my life up until the moment it was made.

What is most important is that we give ourselves the gift of opening up with someone we can trust about the shame we carry so we can release the load.

I have to admit that I did feel a tad bit lighter that day leaving the salon…I call it a “shame diet”!

You can give yourself a ‘shame diet’ too:

1. What is an experience from the past that you carry and are willing and ready to lose the weight of today?

2. Determine who might you confide in to share your experience.

3. And then make time to share of your experience to lighten your load!

If the shame you carry is too overwhelming do reach out for some professional help. You can Contact Me today and get your ‘shame diet’ started!

JD’s Midlife Tools For Living Practices, Holland, MI
Offering Heartfelt care, Compassion and Coping Tools