JM: "James, how do you feel about Shame?
JB: "Golly, that's a big one, Jack. How long have you got?"
At first, I hesitated, suggesting grief. However, in the end, as I was asked, so I chose to respond.
____
“How are you?” “Good! You?” “Yeah, I’m good, thanks.”
Shame is said to live within us all—a master emotion debated in psychology and philosophy circles, buried beneath the facades we present to the world.
Some days, the gentlest reminders of past events stir shame to the surface. Other times, it seeps through, tangled in a web of emotions, unleashed unexpectedly.
Some mask their shame more skillfully than others—cloaking it in overreaching bravado or binding themselves in crippling self-scrutiny, always with lashings of judgment.
It’s easier to don the mask and press onward than to enter the cavern of the sleeping beast within.
Shame is an unwelcome passenger, ever insistent on riding shotgun along a difficult journey. His old mate Grief often joins the ride because she can, and there's a spare seat.
Tools crafted by wiser minds can help tame this ever-present passenger, teaching us to sit beside it with quiet courage, listen patiently to its distorted rants, and see through its confusing haze.
Memories, hard-wired into the cognitive circuitry, resist erasure; the mind’s hard drive endures, even as the software of awareness evolves.
Guard the self; safety above all. Cortisol, adrenaline—find your calm. Amygdala, stand down.
It’s no longer real.
Like the audience at a Punch and Judy show, we cry, “He’s behind you!”—oversimplifying what we cannot see. Yet it remains—waiting for the next strike.
Understand the origins, the precedents, the triggers—both the fiction and the reality. Blame comes easily; understanding takes work. Hard work.
Platitudes are offered freely by those who attempt to simplify complexity.
Acceptance, compassion, and brutal honesty are tools few can tolerate—but they are the key to draining the ogre’s power, and moving toward understanding
Tread carefully, for truth can be a discomfort to bear. Choose your audience wisely.
So, yeah—‘I’m good, thanks. It’s the mask I wear, along with many others—the phrase that keeps the world turning. For now, it’s enough to keep moving.