Monthly Archives: August 2007

Normally I step into the shower with a question, expecting and then receiving a response in the form of words . . . sentences . . . ideas . . . messages that I essentially ‘hear’ and then transcribe for myself and anyone else who might be tuning in.

But sometimes there is no question that I can find the right words for. Sometimes I don’t know exactly what to ask, or how to articulate my concern or issue. Sometimes I stand there in the flow . . . waiting for the Flow . . . with only what I feel in that moment, knowing only that my heart is asking for . . . something . . . even if my mind has not yet provided the words for that desire.

And so it was today, as I stood there, wanting . . . asking without words . . . hoping to be understood . . . waiting. As I waited, what came were not words, initially, but pictures. They were pictures of a little boy walking along a beach, with his mother nearby but not in the picture. The little boy had the open horizon of the sea and sky beside him . . . and on his face was a calm curiosity that was familiar but that I seemed to have forgotten.

I looked at the little boy and I recognized him . . . not just his face and form, but his heart, and how it felt to be walking with that horizon beside him and with his mother close by, knowing that all was well . . . knowing that he was loved and cared for . . . protected. . . . knowing only that his world was calm and bright with possibility, knowing only that he was loved and had no reason to question whether he was worthy . . . knowing only safety and comfort . . . knowing no fear or rejection or worry of not being enough . . . knowing no fear about what would become of him or what he would become.

I saw this little boy walk over to me and take my hand, urging me to walk with him, to be with him in his world, seeing what he saw, feeling how he felt. I stood there in the shower, letting myself watch me with this little boy whom I recognized and remembered. I stood there letting him take me back to a place where I could see and hear more clearly things I had forgotten.

I let him lead me back to that place of peace and quiet and comfort and joy. Then and only then did I hear the familiar words . . . the familiar sounding message . . . coming in response to the question I didn’t even realize I was asking .

Yes, you are loved.
Yes, you are worthy of love.
Yes, that part of you—that child you were and still are—knew this then and knows it now, and will always be there to remind you, to take your hand and to walk beside you anytime your heart calls out to the You, you really are.

It was a brief message, but the words and the pictures told me everything I needed to know, to feel what I needed to feel. And for that moment, I remembered again how it felt to feel–then and now—for the moment, complete.

A good friend of mine was confiding to me not long ago about being in the process of filing bankruptcy. That fact alone was not especially noteworthy to me and knowing it had about as much of an impact on my opinion of my friend as a gnat someone would brush off their arm.

What was striking to me was her strong desire not to reveal the bankruptcy to certain members of her family, who she believed would not understand or approve but instead would judge her rather harshly.

What I heard and felt in her words as she talked about wanting to hide this information was not just embarrassment but shame. I heard and felt the shame because it somehow touched a place in me where shame had also resided. I recognized shame. And the recognition of it—hers and mine—made me feel, at first, sad . . . and then increasingly angry. But with whom?

So I asked The Shower Team to speak to me about shame: my friend’s . . . mine . . . maybe yours?

The sadness that you are feeling, initially, when you give your attention to this subject, is the sorrow anyone feels when they choose to leave the comfort of unconditional love and to run away to a strange, cold, barren place where they are judged worthy or unworthy by the extent to which they conform to others’ expectations or comply with others’ demands.

When you are connected to Source . . . when you are remembering who You really are–that you are blessed, adored, beings of light–when you remember the well being that abounds and the adoration that abounds for you from the Universe, you cannot feel anything remotely resembling shame. But when you take your eyes off your own connection . . . when you let yourself see yourself through the eyes of others rather than through the eyes of Source . . . then you begin to judge yourself . . . you begin to compare yourself to the standards that others have adopted and proclaimed as good or worthy . . . You measure your “progress” or “success” or “failure” based on where you stand in relation to others as opposed to where you stand in relation to your own connection to Source . . . and you begin to suffer by comparison. You lose your way. You lose your footing. You begin to actually believe that what anybody else thinks or says matters . . . and you decide to make others’ feelings or opinions more important than your own connection . . . more important than your own well being . . . more important than the unconditional love that is always available to you.

It is no wonder you feel sad, for what could be sadder than the sight of a blessed, adored, perfectly lovable child choosing to leave the comfort and joy of a home where unconditional love abounds and running away to a place where unhappy and unfulfilled and harshly critical and demanding others wait to remind you at every turn how poorly you are doing?

We are exaggerating here slightly in order to make a point. The issue is not the malice of those close to you or any pleasure that they take in kicking you when you are down. The point is that when you feel shame, YOU are turning away from what the part of you that is Source knows is true . . . You are separating yourself from the You that you really are, and as a result, you are feeling that separation acutely because Source cannot accompany you on any journey that takes you away from your connection.

No wonder you get angry. Some part of you is recognizing what you are doing to yourself and wanting you to stop it—wanting
you to turn around and see how well it all is going . . . see how beautifully you are getting along, regardless of the specific conditions that you have focused upon that feel embarrassing or shameful to you. No one else’s judgment of you can affect you unless you are judging yourself. Release the judgment you are making of yourself, and the problem of shame or embarrassment or letting others down will have no power over you.

Repeatedly tell yourself this truth– that love is unconditional . . . that love requires only that you be you . . . and that as you are able to offer that kind of love to you, there will be no cause, no justification, no need, no concern, no tolerance of shame. The only remotely shameful thing in your experience is the shame that you allow into your experience and even that is never held against you by anyone who matters—except you.

It’s a shame I didn’t ask the question sooner. I’ve heard people say that guilt and worry are two of the biggest wastes of time and energy that we engage in. Neither one ever really changes what we’re feeling guilty or worried about. Shame seems to be an appropriate addition to that list of colossal and unnecessary time wasters.

I may not be the very sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes, but I understand the value of using my time and energy well. So while I look around for a dumpster to put shame where it belongs . . . I’ll also let myself feel appropriately glad to know that no matter how far off I may wander sometimes from the knowledge of how loved and lovable and generally cool I really am . . . in this case, I can always go home again. Knowing that makes me feel, for the moment, unashamedly complete.