Confronting Shame and Fear
I've been reading a
fascinating book and it speaks about an emotion we rarely cop to or
speak about: shame. Why? Because we're too "ashamed" to even
acknowledge what were shameful about. We all have it and it's attached
to us like a big elephant in the room, we try to hide it, but you can't
hide an elephant. It's too big and too interesting for others to
ignore. I know I rarely even use the word "shame". I use the words for
emotions like happy, elated, angry, frustrated, sad often, but I rarely
say "shame". So I started to thing about it....what am I ashamed about
and for those of you who are reading, what does this have to do with
weight loss?
My dad always seems to remark how fair skinned I am. I've heard,
often through my life, why don't you get a tan? I've even had
instructions about how to build a great tan and get darker skin. Forget
about the fact that sunning might actually be harmful, he thinks I
would be more attractive if I had darker skin. So I walk around,
ashamed of my skin color. Can you imagine? I see my skin color 24 hours
a day! I feel "shame" 24 hours a day! Who cares how great of a figure I
get, I'll still have this fair skin!
It made me realize something: there are so many "demons" wrapped up
and intertwined within the process of weight loss. Confronting the
demons, maybe slowly, maybe only one at a time, is the only way. The
only way through something is actually through.