Learn How to Let Go of Your Shame

Are you plagued with feeling like you’re not good enough? Do you have a hard time forgiving yourself for past wrongs? Healing shame is the key to moving forward with your life. Can you get over the degradation that you are feeling right now? When it seems you are not good enough or not worthy enough of love, stop and take a moment to reflect.

What Are You Ashamed Of?

How to get rid of guilt -- you ask yourself this question again and again. What are the negative parts of your being that make you feel bad about yourself? When you feel unworthy, it becomes harder to build successful relationships with others because you avoid connecting with them. 

Perhaps your shame comes from your finances. How often do you feel like you are financially insecure? When it often feels like you have less, you know that the feeling is born out of your comparison of other people’s lives to yours. You feel like you have less because you see that others have more. But do they really have more than you? Or is it just you wanting to have more than you should?

Do you feel like less of a being than those around you? Why do you feel this way? What makes you think that others are in a better position than you? 

When you find yourself asking these questions, instead, try asking yourself whether these worries are worth the anxiety. More than likely, they’re not. However, feelings of guilt and shame make you more vulnerable to negative self-talk. 

How Does Shame Make You Vulnerable?

At one point in everyone’s life, they will feel shame. Maybe something happened that led them to feel such that way, such as a poor decision or an outside humiliation. Or perhaps the feeling of guilt has always been in them and that it was only triggered by a situation, an event, or a person. 

All humans experience a particular kind of embarrassment, and it presents itself in several ways. A person who is dealing with the guilt of not being enough will often find themselves in a depressing situation. They may think of ways how to overcome guilt, but they often find it a fruitless endeavor. They often feel their most vulnerable when they try to do things to deal with the shame, but they end up feeling worse. 

Here are some situations you may be familiar with if you suffer from unnecessary shame: 

• When you are too sensitive and emotional about a situation, you may feel bad about overreacting. The emotions overwhelm you, and it could hit you to the core, thus adding more shame to the mix.
• You feel like you are not doing enough to save the earth from what everyone else is doing. You may even feel guilty about the choices you’ve made that go against nature and mother earth. 
• You’re feeling ashamed for wanting to have or be something when others look down upon it. For example, you desire to be a mother when everyone else is working on improving their career. 
• You feel like you’re too ambitious in your career while everyone is working on a project to help save humanity. This is when you feel like you are very wrong for wanting the things that you want. 
• You feel like you’re too dependent on your partner, so you tend to suck up all the energy from them. This makes you feel like you loving them is actually hurting them.

Whether you’re experiencing any or all of these feelings of shame and guilt, extended negative self-talk can lead to anxiety, depression, and even physical sickness. 

How Do You Let Go Of The Shame?

How do you help yourself find healing from shame? Writing down what is causing the guilt from deep inside or saying it out loud to a good friend or a therapist can help clear your head. Sometimes, dealing with it out loud can make people feel silly, but it’s an excellent first step.

But how do you really let go of shame? Here are some tips to make it happen:

• Allow yourself to feel the shame. More often than not, people try to hide these feelings because admitting to it makes them feel even more guilty. They are afraid that others might judge them for feeling how they feel. You hide feelings of shame, basically because they are not desirable. But if you want to get rid of it, you have to confront it. Admit to it and find out what is causing that feeling. With any luck, you can begin to see the feeling in a different light. 
• Ask yourself if what you believe in is correct. If you feel ashamed because you think that you are undisciplined, then ask yourself if you are really undisciplined. This might seem to be the truth, but when you ask the question, you will be able to open the small possibility that it might not be true at all. Moreover, you’ll be able to see that the thing you have always believed in may not really be right at all. 
• Look into yourself and appreciate the essential goodness that you have inside of you. If deep inside, you feel like you are not adequate or that you are not enough for the people you love, then ask yourself if that is true. What purpose do you serve in their lives? Everyone has that basic goodness inside of them, and you have that in you too. Trust yourself and start with that goodness and see how it makes you feel. 
• Give yourself a little bit more compassion and a whole lot of love. If you think you are unworthy of other people’s love, then love yourself even more. The first practice of love and compassion is to the self. If you want to give compassion and love to others, then you must learn to show it to yourself first. Pour in more kindness to yourself. Forgive yourself for all your shortcomings. Allow yourself to commit mistakes and not be perfect. Love yourself even when you are at your lowest. That’s the best time you can genuinely reward yourself for all the goodness that you deserve. 

If you practice this way, you might be able to loosen yourself up a little bit, love a little bit more, and learn to let go of the shame that is eating you up. After all, the only way to be ready for other’s love and compassion is to be filled with it from within.