One of the most challenging realizations regarding shame work is that you can't muscle your way through or past it.

The only way to relinquish shame's hold on you is to face it head-on. 

The more we try to hide our shame or prove it wrong by covering up our fears and narratives of self-judgment and inadequacy, the more it consumes us. The more it will take up space and be the leading leg in every interaction we have with others. 

Shame is best friends with our ego, and its sole role is to try and protect us — to help us be seen and to establish worth and value. 

It just does so from a position so far from any base of helpfulness. But ignoring or demonizing it isn't the answer. 

Learning to lean into your shame, give it space to be heard so you can take from it what serves you and learn to leave the rest, is the only way forward.

And that is exactly what Dan Harris talked about in his most recent TedTalk, "The Benefits of Not Being a Jerk to Yourself". His humor and raw authenticity in this 13-minute video help you feel seen. It gives space for us to take a breath, realize the ways we, too, have been running from and thus consumed by our shame and negative self-evaluation and how the only way to change this story is to learn to love ourselves unconditionally — shame and all.