6 | Marsha Ferrick, PhD, BCC

SHAME

Understanding the impact of shame on your life.

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1. What have you found shameful about yourself in the past?

2. What do you wish that no one ever noticed about you?

3. What do you find shameful about your body?

4. What are aspects of your shift in world view that you want to keep hidden? What don't you want other people to learn about you? How can you safeguard the secrets you disclose in this exercise?

5.Think about each of your secrets. Why would it be terrible for people to learn about the secrets? Write down what you are afraid of for each secret.

6. Has anyone ever treated you in a harmful way when they learned about your secrets? If you have what was it like? Did they minimize or try to fix your pain? Look back at these shameful truths, which of them involves letting others determine your value and desirability.

7. There is a difference between longing to be wanted by someone and staking our lives on being wanted by that person. Often we try to kill the longing in ourselves rather then take back the power we have given others in determining our self-worth.

8.Which of these sound like you?

I do not want to be wanted and enjoyed by people and I never have.
I do not feel I long to be wanted and enjoyed but I think that deep down I do long for that.
I used to long for that a lot but now I rarely think about it.
I am more aware of that longing than I used to be.
I long for that intensely, but I long more to love others well.
Being wanted and enjoyed by people is one of my top priorities, ahead of loving others.

9. What do you long for most?

I would give anything to have …
I feel as though I would be happy if I could have …
The things I miss most in life are ...
The things I do not ever want to have to live without are …

10.What signs do you see in your life that you have tried and perhaps succeeded at to deaden you longing for deep satisfying relationships with others.

11.What pain do you want to avoid by not longing for love?

12.What pain has longing for love caused you in the past year? Or what pain have you avoided by not longing for love?

13.Do you identify with the fear of abandonment? If so what things do you do because of this fear?

14.As you look back over your answers to this exercise, think about whom you are trusting. To what or whom have you given the power to determine your desirability and worth?

15.Express your feelings about this exercise in one of the following ways…

Make a clay sculpture of how you see yourself, or as you think others see you.
Make a collage about the shame. It might be a picture of how you experience shame or of the things that make you feel ashamed. Give it a tittle.
Go through collected photographs and select some that picture your feelings of shame. What makes them so shameful?
Write how shame makes you feel. What thoughts does it evoke?

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