What is feminine shame?
Shame is a painful emotion.
Shame is tricky, insidious, and mysterious, yet it’s at the root of most human suffering and dis-ease.
It’s responsible for the “there’s something wrong with me story” and is responsible for creating the things we dislike in our lives, our bodies, our relationships, and our health.
Shame is caused by resisting some part of ourselves and in that resistance, we live in a state of inner conflict and turmoil and are constantly ashamed of the part of ourselves we’ve been programmed to believe is unworthy or invalid.
Feminine Shame is when we perceive our sense of safety, belonging, contentment, and joy to be in jeopardy, and then we internalise that to be because of us and who we are naturally in our core.
Feminine Shame comes from resisting the parts of ourselves that are in flux.
Feminine Shame exists because of shame we carry around aspects of ourselves that are transient and cyclical – like our physical bodies and emotions), because of aspects of ourselves that are natural and perhaps different from society’s widely accepted definitions of “normal.”
Feminine Shame is an intense and deeply held resistance, aversion, resentment, and fear towards anything that is soft, transient, cyclical, fluid, passive, nurturing, intuitive, and/or emotional in nature.
It is a shame towards that which is natural in a world attempting to get us on board with what’s “normal”
Since so much of our world in its natural state is meant to encompass these qualities (our physical bodies, the cycles of the Earth, the stages of life, growth, and ageing, and more), it’s an unfortunate truth that we’ll all experience this Feminine Shame at some point in our lives to varying degrees.
Always striving to fit into a rigid, external measure of “normal,” willing ourselves to continue the quest when what would truly bring us back to wholeness is embracing our natural state and our Spirally essence.
These beliefs are so deeply ingrained and passed down the lineage creating ancestral shame and trauma.
Living in Feminine Shame is a constant fight against that which is natural.
There’s a disconnection from our inner spark as we continually seek cues and validation externally.
This wreaks havoc on us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually and contributes to dis-ease on a massive scale.
Feminine Shame is at the heart of many deep-feeling, sensitive women’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual challenges – especially burnout.
We will try anything to avoid feeling shame, but we do FEEL it deeply in our systems, which then produces more behaviours that we judge, and this cycle can continue for our whole lives, weaving into every area of our lives.
So my advice here is to ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL THE SHAME without attaching a story to it.
If you do not resist these emotions, it will not last more than 90 seconds – 2 minutes.
If you do notice these stories, allow yourself to just sit in the feeling, because on the other side of SHAME is WORTHINESS..
So by avoiding feeling shame or guilt, you are also avoiding your own worthiness.
We can then ask the question, “What are we making this mean about us?” and in a compassionate loving frame, we can begin to unravel the story because the opposite of the actual trigger will always be the truth..
If there is SHAME there is WORTHINESS.
If our unconscious tendency with shame is to keep telling ourselves a story that we are not good enough, then we will often hide and cover ourselves, so the antidote to it is to look, see and unveil ourselves by looking at ourselves with a LOVING GAZE, instead of a critical one.
Without judgement.
Brené Brown says, “If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive”.
Our job therefore is to be the witness that looks at ourselves, “I SEE YOU, I LOVE YOU, YOU ARE PERFECT JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, YOU DO NOT HAVE THIS ALL FIGURED OUT, I LOVE YOU FLAWS AND ALL” – to really look at ourselves with a loving gaze, because so many of us did not have that safe space growing up – When being seen wasn’t safe we learned to hide, duck, retract, and cover ourselves up.
“Shame dies when our stories are told in safe places” Ann Voskamp – so for me, my safe spaces are with my own coach, with some dear friends, but more importantly with myself.
“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.” – Brené Brown
So where are there places that you need to own?
Where are the places that are crying out for your own loving gaze?
Where are the places that need to hear, “Who told you you weren’t good enough?”; “Who told you there is something wrong with you?”
If you would like to dive deeper with me on the topic of SHAME, I have done a whole transmission on this topic in my CIRCLE COMMUNITY alongside many other brilliant and heart-opening topics – You would be so welcome to join us 
For those beady-eyed amongst you 😉 The BIRTHDAY announcement will be coming soon..
Please keep your eyes peeled in the coming days, this will ONLY be delivered to my email list.
THINGS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST FOR YOU:
1. I am holding a RETREAT DAY here in Snettisham, alongside my colleague & friend Emma Williamson, called “Siren Saturdays“, which we hope to make a regular event.
*Closing meditation
2. REWILDING WOMAN’S RETREAT IN SPAIN – June 10 – 15th – for information or to download the itinerary, please click on this link
3. Surrender vs Submission – free transmission on my YouTube channel
HAVE COURAGE,
Love, Charli x
