Seducing Shame

Shame is something I dance with often. I often feel the shutter of shame, that feeling that is so undeniably potent — like time stops, you flash back to what you did or said, and then you get the rush of a tidal wave of anxiety from your gut to your head, and it replays the scene over and over. Do you know what I’m talking about? 

It used to be really bad. If I was around people, I would tune out, I would hear my own head telling me what a loser I was, or that I’m a horrible person, or that I wasn’t okay, or that I was a fraud trying to come off as being good. 

This was crippling. It breaks my heart to think of the relationships I was in from that space where I was at the mercy of my own stories, in total zombie mode when they would come knocking at my door. 

I see emotional experiences as these goddesses who come to my temple to greet me. 

I see them as potent information and opportunity to do the work even more deeply. 

And the other night, I went out dancing with one of my best friends. And out of nowhere, for no apparent reason, I felt shame. It felt like a bowling ball in my solar plexus. 

And I made a choice in that moment. I could go sit in it and go down the rabbit hole, or I could dance with it. If any goddess came knockin’ on my door, I would wanna treat her with the utmost passion and grace. So if shame is a goddess…. I’m bustin’ a move with her. 

So I danced my little heart out. I put my hands on my solar plexus where that bowling ball was and moved with it. I breathed into it. I gave it presence, and nurturing, and expressed with my body what shame felt like. And the craziest thing happened… I actually found a bit of pleasure in that shame dance. 

The shame came to suck me in to her depths, but I seduced the fuck out of her like the snake charmer that I am. I danced with her, got her a drink of water, and we had a good laugh after. And I saw what she was trying to tell me all along — that my imperfections, the moments that make me shutter with shame, are also the moments where I am the most human. And that I needed to hold the younger part of me for a moment and give her some love, because she always dreamed of a world where she could feel so liberated in her body and experience. 

This is what it means to me to be an alchemist — to feel your emotions, no matter how hard they are, and to mix them with any ounce of pleasure you have in your body, and express them in this new, magical way. 

Instead of letting shame consume me, I consumed her, ravished her, and left her in total rapture. Our bodies are so powerful — they remember and hold on to everything. When you call on the power of your body to work with you to feel these tough things, you actually start to heal them. 

So, my love, how can you alchemize your shame into passion? How can you dance with your emotions in a new way?