Can shame serve a positive purpose?

Shame is one of the destructive emotions. When it arises inside you (all of us experience it from time to time) look closely and see how your very body shrinks in size. A serious bout of shame makes you shut down, close up shop, and try to disappear. Self-hate is also likely to arise. Then you can’t adequately deal with what is occurring – or even learn from it.

No, I don’t believe that shame can serve a positive purpose. Dependent on its severity, however, it can be more or less destructive.

I do believe that healthy pride – the polar opposite of shame – is a good antidote for shame. The challenge is to enter into a meditative state when you feel shame so that you can be aware of the internal talk and any body sensations that arise. Doing this you don’t hide, instead you are keenly present. You are bigger than your shame.

In another step, while you’re meditating, you can look for the seeds of healthy pride inside you by calling forth the memory of an incident in which you showed a particularly good skill – and allow yourself to know what can be called competency pleasure. Hear the positive internal talk and the good body sensations that come with that pleasure and let a slight smile spread across your lips.

What a remarkable learning to realize the polarity exists and you can choose which side you’re on – even if only for a few brief moments.

Homesickness means that we have left our home and long for the caring that came with it – or we have left our mother’s womb and long for unconditional caring.

Freud recognized that somewhere very deep inside we all have that longing. And he wrote about an “oceanic” feeling that many adults have – like being held and rocked in a universal womb. As meditators, we say this oceanic feeling happens when we are held in the Oneness that is our spiritual home.

The womb and the ocean and the Oneness in which we are all held are reflections of each other.