{"id":48136,"date":"2022-11-20T10:58:49","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T10:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=48136"},"modified":"2022-11-20T10:58:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-20T10:58:57","slug":"the-power-of-shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/11\/20\/the-power-of-shame\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Shame."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maybe my ambition was actually shame.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes a lot of sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How else can you achieve things that most people deem special and amazing and extraordinary, and hardly feel a fucking thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shame can\u2019t be compensated by achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The universally nagging \u2018I\u2019m Not Good Enough\u2019 can never be silenced by success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems that shame has been the driving force behind most of my bigger endeavors in life, from careers in the spotlight to life-threatening, stupid habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing it like this actually levels the playing field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It highlights what CAN be good about shame, or that good things can come out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shame not only \u2018helped\u2019 me in becoming an alcoholic; it also helped me quit drinking after 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How incredibly versatile!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been walking around with shame forever, and I only recognize that now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a sense of ongoing restlessness, with the faint scent of pending punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like always being in a hurry to get to a place that will have vanished the moment you finally get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has accompanied me in everything I did, and made it almost impossible to just sit down and do nothing, even though I tried very hard (as a very spiritual person, ugh…).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shame isn\u2019t inherently bad, just like nothing is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can bring about beautiful and powerful things, but that doesn\u2019t mean that those things can only be brought about by shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know very well it\u2019s scary to let go of the relative comfort of shame as the engine behind almost everything you do, because it can feel very unsafe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what might help is appreciating the shame for what it has brought you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There WERE good things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And by doing so you can acknowledge its deeply motivational qualities and its essentially loving purpose, and it will no longer need to be so pervasive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If shame is a replacement for safety, or a way to keep you alive or make you special, no wonder you\u2019ll keep hanging on to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shining a light on this deepest of emotions, this very human sensation, will help you find new ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @tabithabrooke, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe my ambition was actually shame. It makes a lot of sense. How else can you achieve things that most people deem special and amazing and extraordinary, and hardly feel a fucking thing? Well… Shame can\u2019t be compensated by achievement. The universally nagging \u2018I\u2019m Not Good Enough\u2019 can never be silenced by success. It seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[99,102,97,117,100,105,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48138,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48136\/revisions\/48138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}