How do you get past the shame??
In my view, by recognizing your power. Those of us that had less than rosy childhoods are all to familiar with feeling helpless. Some of us, hand raised here, learn to fight back in ways that were within our control. Some of those ways weren't always nice. Enter guilt. Because we're young we don't have the concept of feeling bad for something we did being different from feeling bad for who we are.
Messages other's gave us then were we were worthless or unworthy of love. So often when we grow up we carry that hard coding with us.
We tend to gravitate toward others that confirm this by their thoughts or actions. If we find someone that doesn't we don't believe them.
This is something I've seen quite a bit.
While I've experienced guilt I've never felt shame. I think it's a complete waste of time as I'm the only one that can fix, save, help me so I better have some faith in myself, ffs.
A choice to have an affair, the mechenations behind those choices, the carrying out of those choices are absolute exercises in power. Misdirected power and control, but there none the less.
You have it in you. Just because your experiences with that power haven't always been healthy doesn't mean you stop using it. You learn to use it wisely.
I think many of us tend to diminish ourselves out of fear. Not because of how weak we are but because we know at a core level how strong we are...how much our choices matter. It's, at times, more comforting to think we don't. Then we can go about our business under the radar because people don't care.
A bird, a small in comparison carbon based life form, can bring down a jet liner. We have power. You have it. Use it. You'll find that shame is actually a crutch to keep ourselves in a prison of our own design.
[This message edited by uncertainone at 1:04 PM, July 20th (Saturday)]
