-The Deceptive Paradox of Proving Your Value-

If you get better at something, it’s bound to improve…right??

It’s common sense. Practice makes perfect. If at first you fail, try, try again. Work harder and you’ll get better.

Except there’s at least one game in town…one of the most universally played games by the human race…whose rules say such things, but few read the fine print. Like a deceptive contract: written to appeal with flashy, no-nonsense terms that distract from the underlying clauses they don’t want you to see.

The obvious portion of the rules seem to promise it is good for you. The hidden rules take these built-in promises and use them to trap you.

This game is called The Shame Game.

Shame is a word that conjures up a lot of feelings, a lot of images, a lot of opinions. Most importantly, it is one of the biggest triggers for pushing subconscious toxic conditioning buttons that cause humans to hurt each other.

But what is shame, really? A word we all know, a word that many don’t really understand. It is also confused with guilt quite often. It is semantics, of course, but seeking to explain them is still very helpful. Here’s 2 simple phrases that quickly paint the difference:

Healthy Guilt: I made a mistake.

Toxic Shame: I am a mistake.

The first one is talking about a choice. It is talking about a moment in time. It is talking about something that is now in the past. It is not omnipresent. It does not predict your future. It came. It went.

The second one is talking about your identity and self-worth. It is talking about all moments of time. It is talking about something in your past, present, and future. It is always present. It predicts your future in the same way that being human has the power to predict you will always be a human in the future, too. It came. It stayed. It can never leave.

There aren’t many things that truly, intrinsically define who we are. If we are using this phrase literally (yes, it’s fine to use this phrase non-literally for all kinds of things, like ‘I am tired’), then anything that actually defines who we are doesn’t ever change. You are human and you can’t stop being human, for example. But you can’t be a liar…not really. You can lie. You can say that you lie often or that you used to lie or that you plan on lying more. But if your state of being was actually being a liar, then you could never do anything besides lie, in the same immutable way that you can’t choose to stop being human.

It gets philosophical from here, so let’s just stick with that much to talk about why this matters to all of us…to you. We are relationship beings. Shame strikes at the heart of our ability to relate…of our ability to believe that we are worthy of relating. Not just to others, but to ourselves. We need to relate to others to be happy and healthy. We need to be able to enjoy relating to ourselves to be happy and healthy. Neither are optional to have good mental health and soul well-being.

But you are probably mostly wondering right now:

What exactly is the Shame Game?

Well, to answer your question, let me give you one more definition. The couple of phrases above are great for distinguishing guilt and shame, and for capturing what shame often feels like on a visceral level: to feel like a mistake, to feel broken, to feel never good enough. But the most literal definition of toxic shame is this:

Toxic Shame = Conditional Self-Worth

If you place a condition on having self-worth, it is a type of shame. Full stop.

The only true antidote is Unconditional Self-Worth. Self-worth is a type of human right, just like the right to happiness and freedom and humane treatment.

“Great!” you say. “So how do I get it?”

I thought you might ask. It seems like a great question.

The only problem is, it’s the gateway question to the Shame Game. It’s the question that systems and cultures conditioned into shame want you to ask. To ask this question is to begin the great game. Everybody is trained to play it. Some more than others. Those who play it to overpower others are engaging in abuse.

The issue with the question above, is that it is built on the premise that self-worth can be earned, can be created, can be worked for, can be sought after, can be fixed…can be lost. To keep it simple:

The Shame Game = Trying to earn your worth.

To do so makes as much sense as trying to earn your right to be human. You can earn lots of things, like money or reputation or trust. But you can’t earn your worth.

If you could earn your worth, then guess what? That means your worth is conditional. Only conditional things can be earned. Unconditional things have no conditions.

If you try to earn your worth…even if you are really, really good at it…you are playing the Shame Game. To make it more heartfelt: you are shaming yourself.

The Shame Game is addictive, unfortunately. It is our natural state to feel a sense of self-worth. We are born with it and it is only conditioned out of us. But let’s be clear. Your actual self-worth is not conditioned out of you. Your are only conditioned into believing you are not worthy. You are intrinsically worthy, no matter whether or not you see it or believe it or ever even asked the question. Just like you are human without even needing to have a concept of what human is.

This game is addictive because it is very unnatural for us to not feel worthy and we will do almost anything to get it. If we don’t feel like we can get it, shameful feelings set in. Sometimes it drives us to take our own lives, if we don’t think we are inherently worthy of love.

If you think you have to earn your worth to get it, then you will keep working, keep practicing, keep trying harder every time you think you’ve failed at it. If at first you realize you didn’t make yourself worthy enough, try, try again. Practice makes perfect. That is the mantra your Shame Game coach preaches to you.

Thus, when you have a success where you feel like you earned your worth, you are on top of the world. And when that success inevitable fails or fades away into the past, you crash into feeling the warm wash of shame.

What are you going to do when you come crashing down? Why, get up and try even harder! Who doesn’t?

I will tell you who doesn’t. Those who have come to realize (usually through trying the Shame Game so many times that they were forced to realize it is a sham), that it is just like an addictive process. When the drug leaves your system, you have to get more to feel better, yet it has a way of working less and less each time…until it barely works at all.

There is hope. There is light ahead. The game feels hopeless, because more effort only seems to yield more disappointment.

There is only 1 solution. You have to see the game for what it is. You have to surrender and realize it is a game you cannot win.

You don’t heal your shame by getting better at playing the Shame Game.

You don’t heal your shame by getting better at earning your worth.

You start the healing process by choosing to stop playing the game altogether.

This is the only way.

Because your worth is already there. It always was and always will be. The slippers to go home have been on your feet all along, Dorothy.

Once you realize this (and mark my words, realizing does not mean you’ve internalized it all the way yet. That is the work of healing and it is a great thing to work on in therapy, if you feel called to that), your real healing journey can begin. Unlike the Shame Game, which keeps you walking in futile circles, refusing to play the game can finally start you on a journey that actually takes you somewhere.

It takes you into the realization that you are worthy and always have been.

Sure, you can make choices that hurt yourself or others. You can make choices that will get in the way of the life you deserve and that others deserve. That is what healthy guilt is for. To realize you made a choice that needs learning, changing, sometimes amends and sometimes natural consequences that need to be worked through.

But your worth was never in question.

You are free, dear reader, to stop the tiresome game. Like getting out of an abusive relationship, you decide you’ve had enough and you deserve better.

If you play the game, you can never win. And it leads to cycles of feeling worse than others or needing to feel better than others. That’s not good for you and it’s not good for the rest of the world. Because we all have worth.

If you stop believing in the game, winning becomes irrelevant and love for self and others becomes the new journey of growth.

You are worthy. You always have been.

With love, Aurora.

P.S. — If you find yourself wondering how we can have unconditional worth, especially people who do terrible things in this world, that is a question for another article. There is an answer. Know that the answer doesn’t excuse people’s bad behaviors and it also doesn’t rob them of their unconditional worth. If those 2 things together seem like a paradox, that’s because the Shame Game conditions us to have that bias. However, it is a topic too long to include in this article. Maybe I’ll write one on that topic at some point. If you’ve made it this far, good job!