The Shame Revolution

 

Writers (and everybody else) need to know about this! I recently was blown away by the work of two people both, oddly enough, named Brown.  Bryan Brown wrote Soul Without Shame and Brené Brown wrote I Thought It was Only Me, both remarkably eloquent treatises on how an Inner Judge, far crueler and more relentless than all the outer ones we cope with on a day to day basis, can and does sabotage our confidence, our hopes and dreams by playing a never-ending loop of our supposed inadequacies and quilts in our heads 24/7.

I confess it took me forever to borrow these books from the library after both my sister and a dear friend each told me they were important breakthrough books.  Why?  Because the word shame surely didn’t apply to me!  How wrong I was became clear around page 2 of each book.

 

How to Defeat the Judge a.k.a the Cosmic Critic

 

Here’s the gist (I hope it inspires you to read the work of these two beautiful Browns) but I’ll do my best to synopsize.  Our external critics may be mean and many but at least they go home at night and give us a break from their carping.  Our Inner Judge, however, never takes time off!  He lurks within and sabotages us through the lowest of low blows. I call him the Cosmic Critic now when I banish him from my head!)

 

He discounts our virtues entirely and harps on our faults, defeats, weaknesses, imperfections.  He never relents at all, but plays his message in an endless destructive loop in our brain.  It goes something like this:  (fill in your own vulnerability to see how easily this concept applies to us all)

 

• Why didn’t I speak up at that meeting?
• Why did I eat the yummy pasta instead of the horrible kale?
• Why don’t I know how to make more money to keep my family safe?
• Why don’t I have a date this weekend?
• Why does my baby have colic and my sister’s children never did?
• Why didn’t I get that promotion I deserved?
• Why did I not finish my manuscript?

etc., etc., depending upon your vulnerabilities on a given day.

 

Of course, the Cosmic Critic never ever takes into account the other mitigating, that’s-just-life truths that are equally important to our self-assessment, for example:

• maybe you got shouted down at the meeting because you were the only woman in a roomful of men who assumed their words were more important than yours
  or
• maybe foods like pasta sometimes add some comfort and joy to your life that’s really needed, and kale is just this year’s dreary passing fancy

or

• maybe the salary you receive for your job is 77% of what a man gets for the same work (and you’re probably expected to do more with less help than he)

or

• maybe the economy has all but tanked middle-class workers since 2008 and made them run faster and faster with less and less reward

or

• maybe the promotion you wanted went to the boss’s sister-in-law

or

• and surely as God made little green-apples, some babies simply come equipped with colic and some just don’t!

 

In short, the Judge is not impartial, he’s there for one purpose only:  to never let you off the hook!

Get the picture?

 

Good!  Now get the books.  I guarantee you’ll thank me and I hope you’ll give the Judge what he deserves:  a swift kick out of your psyche!

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