Recently I found a Facebook group for my high school. I joined it and I have been reminiscing about my high school days. Many of my peers from high school are members of the group. It is interesting to see photos of what they look like now, so many years later. I have not posted any comments or shared anything with the group though. I guess I am not the only one. I wonder if I have achieved enough in my life. I wouldn’t dare to join a reunion. Maybe I am not in their league anymore.
I think I am overreacting. Nobody is the same. I think I have achieved a lot in my life. But I am sure there are many people that may have a feeling of shame deep inside themselves. This is one way that shame could manifest in our lives; however, there are many more ways.
Other examples of shame that I can think of can be things like body image and exercise. If I end up gaining too much weight or, not doing so well in sports compared to before, I may also feel shame. Our lives aren’t always perfect, but when things go wrong it can be hard for us to accept it.
This is something that we all need to address. If we don’t it can affect our mental health. It may already be doing so, and therefore if we could control our feelings of shame we may be able to improve our mental health.
One way to help overcome shame is to practice self-compassion. Practicing self-compassion can come in many forms. We could reframe the way that we think about ourselves. In the past I have mentioned how writing how we feel on a piece of paper can help. After writing how we feel when we are feeling negative, we can then write how we want to feel and cross out our negative feelings. This is a good way to focus on improving our thoughts.
Another way is to do self-compassion meditation. You will find many of them on YouTube. I experiment with many different YouTube meditations, but I won’t recommend any. I am sure you will find one for yourself.
I think I will look more into shame and how it affects us and write more about it. If you have found ways of overcoming it, please let me know.
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