Shame
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We're getting close to the end of this first season of Gumption and the Gumpcast. After covering the 11 chapters we will be taking a break from creating and working more on promotion. It seems really hard to do both at the same time.
I have been feeling that I'm not doing enough honestly. And that brings me to the really difficult topic that we are moving onto : Shame.
That is theme of chapter 8 as Maskat's dad is confronted by his actions and learns about his sons great story of revenge.
I have a lot of self-shame about this Gumption project honestly. Here are some things I have told myself over the past few months since I asked you all to subscribe to this little odyssey of mine:
You are not writing fast enough, a real writer would have been done with the book by now.
Paul is putting in a lot of work on making the Gumpcast sound awesome and you are not promoting it widely enough.
Why are you still not instagram and tiktok where your audience is?
Your commentary posts have poor grammar sometimes and they are not coherent.
You are a little too much on the Gumpcast sometimes. No one wants to hear your weird thoughts.
Why do you think your experience matters? Why do you think that you can write a book that people want to read? And make a podcast too! Your ego is out of control, man.
Yeah, that is pretty much what goes on in my mind on a weekly basis as I bring you this broadcast, write the commentaries, and as I continue to write this damn novel!
Those my friends, are what are called Shame Gremlins.
One of the seminal lectures that helped me identify and maneuver the presence of shame in my life is The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown. If you haven't checked them out...I highly recommend that you do.
She mentions that the 3 things about shame are the following:
1- We all have it
2- We all hate talking about it
3- Once we do talk about it, it is gone.
So let's say I go upto Paul in the example above and tell him:
Hey man, I feel a lot of shame around not promoting these podcasts well enough to match your musical genius so far.
As you can imagine he's probably not going to tell me:
You are a good for nothing partner how dare you fuck this up for us?
No, he's probably going to remind me that I am doing so much and perhaps start talking to me about what we can do to start promoting it or console me in some way.
That's not weakness, on the contrary, it is pure empowerment. I know that it's not how we were brought up. But in many ways - lets face it - for most of us, how we were brought up was kinda fucked up!
And we've internalised our parents shame so much. Now it is time to recalibrate and start talking to ourselves not the way our parents did but the way our best friends and allies do.
May we all find our internal Pauls, and leverage them when we experience shame in our lives. Shame is simply toxic and does not help you or anyone!
Remember, shame means there is something wrong with me. Guilt means I did something wrong. The former has no utility whatsoever, and is also intertwined with things like burnout, depression and addiction. We'll be covering all three topics in the next season of Gumption.
For now, I will leave you with this video from Brene Brown's work; and hope you can join me next week for Episode 8 of the Gumpcast where we will explore the collective conscious, the relationship between Trauma, Epigenetics and Dissociation with a very special guest who practices Etioanalysis.
More on that next week and how it can help rid us of our shame.
May you all let go of that which does not serve you this week!
See you next Sunday ❤