Growing up I was one of those kids that would flush puce with embarrassment at any given opportunity. It was excruciating and created huge social anxiety, not helped by our society\u2019s tormenting attitude towards such sufferers…<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re so red!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I could burn my hands on your face!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Look at your face!\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And many more, all of which exacerbated the humiliating condition. I hated it. I hated the way my body let me down by exposing my shame and how someone else could cruelly or unthinkingly make it worse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then I discovered green make-up! I kid you not! Green cream is designed for those who have pink veins or blotches to help tone it down, but for me it was a revelation. I would put it underneath my foundation and would feel confident that my blushes would be softened and less noticeable whilst I was wearing it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And of course it worked, probably not in the literal sense I was aiming for, but because I felt protected from the exposure, my psyche was triggered far less. A placebo effect.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With this boost to my confidence, I started to observe and study others who either experienced the same humiliating stain or those who seemed impervious. What did they have or do that I could imitate to help me overcome this bodily betrayal?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I discovered that they talked about it; whatever the embarrassing trigger was it was acknowledged openly, frequently with humour and, more often than not, preempting the teasing from others.\u00a0 <\/span>And when I started to try this, it became clear to me how much energy is released when it\u2019s not held inside as a shame or a secret. Instead of churning around my stomach, my behaviour as a drunken fool, a bad friend, or a cuckolded girlfriend, dissipated into the ether of Life and All that encompasses. Like a gas released from a bottle, tight and pressing inside but near instantly blended with the atmosphere once released. This is where shame needs to go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Just this week I told the story to my friends of how I had peed my pants. Having gone to the loo in a restaurant, I took down my trousers and mistakenly left my pants behind.\u00a0 <\/span>Once I sat down, the flow started and too late did I realise that I had just peed right through my underwear. I then had to taken them off, throw them in the bin and go commando for the rest of the day!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018How old were you?\u2019 my friends asked. Um….. this was just a couple of years ago!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In my childhood and early adulthood that would have been a story I could never bear to reveal, now it is a giggle and a mood lightener.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are all manner of stories and experiences far worse than this, those of abuse or betrayal, grave mistakes and woundings, but all of them, without fail, release their energy when brought out into the light with ownership and accountability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When something happens in my life that I do not wish anyone to know about then it is exactly when I need to tell it. If I keep it in, I drown in shame, when I let it out I accept my humanness and I can move on and past.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Imprisoned shame-gas poisons the soul, released vapour heals it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[77,71,184,21,182,48,19,49,185,83,183,181],"class_list":["post-754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holistic-health-emotional-healing","category-personal-moments","tag-anxiety","tag-childhood","tag-confidence","tag-courage","tag-embarrassment","tag-fear","tag-healing","tag-honesty","tag-placebo","tag-recovery","tag-selfbelief","tag-shame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":759,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions\/759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}