I Am Supposed to Feel Ashamed

Recently, as I have embarked upon a job search, I’ve used a trick at times that has been incredibly helpful to me.  It used to be that I just didn’t allow myself to feel my feelings, but now I do all the time.  That can pose a problem when I’m not exactly sure how to be with those feelings.  So I’ve used a trick.  I tell myself, “Ah, you’re supposed to be nervous.”  Immediately, everything makes sense.  Nothing more needs to be done.  I just get to be nervous.

My job search has progressed and I have moved along and encountered more challenges, challenges that are above and beyond my capacity.  This is super tough for me because one of the things that was a solace to me as a child was that I was fairly competent – not at being a kid (!) but at getting along in the adult world.  So here I am now, not getting along in the adult world so much because I never got the stuff I needed as a kid, and it feels awful.  I am ashamed.  Deeply ashamed.  So Andrea suggested that I use this trick again, but then tell myself, “I am supposed to feel ashamed.”

It’s such a relief to phrase it this way.  My job as a kid was to not feel ashamed of what I was missing out on and so it’s such a relief to say and assure myself that I am actually “supposed” to feel this way.  It’s only human.  It’s the only way I could reasonably feel.  I get to live reasonably now.

At the end of our session today, Andrea asked me if I felt more organized.  I paused for a while.  I told her that I think feeling organized is so new that I’m not exactly sure that I could tell.  But I did say that I do feel more compassion for myself.  That is a very organizing thing.

It’s dawning on me as I type this that it is also very organizing to have a place to put all that shame, into a “supposed to” category.  Before I didn’t have a place to put that feeling.  I could deny it, but the feeling never got to settle in somewhere.  I could feel bad about feeling ashamed, but that left me feeling stirred up not relaxed.  Plus I don’t feel bad about myself like I used to so the “bad” category didn’t feel right.  But “supposed to” just works.