The other day, I said something thoughtless to someone and immediately found myself filled with shame.  I was ashamed that I took a concern I had and put it out for someone else to have to think about and had one of those moments when I wished I could rewind the tape and gulp up the words that had just come out of my mouth.  It was one of those experiences where the feeling of being so ashamed of myself also became an immediate resolve to learn from the experience and not allow myself to do that again.

Above and beyond my own discomfort, the experience got me to thinking about the different kinds of shame we encounter, and how we can make lemonade from the sour taste of feeling ashamed.  Instead of turning an experience into what might be called "toxic shame", where we turn on ourselves and attack what we feel is defective about us, there are times when being ashamed can become a springboard for making a change that we feel better about in the long run.

Given that shame is such a terrible and often debilitating experience for most of us - especially when we have been shamed in a toxic and attacking way by other people - it can be deeply relieving to be able to use moments of feeling ashamed as if they were a meditation bell - a call to wake up to something we may want to clear up, clean up, or do differently next time.

For this week's experiment, I invite you to explore your relationship with feeling ashamed of something you've done as a way to make lemonade out of lemons - to allow that experience to guide you in a direction that actually ends up feeling better.  An important part of this experiment is to differentiate between that kind of feeling ashamed and the toxic shame that tells you that you are defective, stupid, or awful in some way.  Shame that tells us we're defective is the kind that makes us want to crawl into a hole and pull in the hole after us, so that no one will see how bad we are. 

Most everyone carries around a secret store of this kind of shame, and it needs to be healed by compassion for yourself and a deep acceptance that to be human means to be imperfect.  For many of us, healing this kind of toxic shame is a lifelong journey and it is profoundly relieving to arrive at a place where being imperfect is all right, is no longer proof of how bad we really are deep down in the secret places in us.

In fact, you might find, as you work with this experiment, that there are times you are distinctly uncomfortable, as shame is often a very unpleasant experience.  One thing that can also become a gift is to allow yourself to feel shame arise and move through without trying to push it away or without adding anything to it.  It sometimes helps if you notice that you're riding a wave of shame, even as you feel whatever comfortable support might be under you, or focus on something beautiful in your environment, or in some other way ground yourself as you allow the wave of shame to arise, move through, and then move on.  This is a skill that can apply to any uncomfortable feeling, be it physical or psychological.  The more skilled we become at riding waves of discomfort, the more resilient we are and the less we are likely to be thrown out of our sense of centeredness when these kinds of feelings emerge.

As you work with this week's experiment, please notice the difference between using experiences of feeling ashamed as a springboard to positive change compared to the urge to use them as evidence of how flawed you are.  If you find yourself using these kinds of experiences to beat yourself up, please give yourself permission not to indulge in that kind of self-harm.  The goal of this week's experiment isn't to prove how bad you are.  It's an invitation to use things you may have done that you don't like as gifts to support positive and constructive change.  These moments become opportunities to generate more options around how you'd like to be in the world.  Since we're all works in progress, you may find that it can be very helpful to frame your mistakes in this way.

As with all the experiments, please bring curiosity along as your constant companion and allow judgments all the room they need to move on through your awareness in the same way clouds move through an open, expansive sky.