One of the stories in my head is this: If I tell you that I want to spend time with you, you won’t want to spend time with me, even if you actually wanted to up until that moment.

I say it anyway. Because it is honest + true + real and I strive to be all of those things. But what I don’t say is that it takes all of my courage to do so, and I feel both scared and sick as I say it.

Sometimes, the response I get validates (or seems to validate) my story. I know the other person doesn’t know my story. I know my story may or may not be true. And yet it is still so incredibly hard to stay open + curious + vulnerable, to not withdraw, to not react from a place of fear – fear that is solely based on a story.

I was processing one of my stories in my journal and I thought: I would be so embarrassed if anyone read this.

My next thought: But why? Why would I be embarrassed?

I think everyone must tell themselves stories like this.

I am just naming them.

I think about shame a lot.

I used to think that shame was the least useful of our emotions.

The only value I saw in shame was that sometimes it tells us when we have behaved in a way that does not align with our values.

But only sometimes!

Most often, it seems to me, we feel ashamed of ourselves for things that do not warrant it.

We keep these things to ourself, sure that people won’t like us or love us or hire us or be friends with us .. if we are ever foolish enough to reveal them.

I saw no value in that kind of shame.

But after a conversation with a friend yesterday, I have revised my opinion.

I think maybe that kind of shame has the potential to connect us to other people, to our compassion, to our humanness.

When I feel embarrassed or ashamed of myself for something, it feels important to share it. That doesn’t mean I can share it, or do share it, or even want to share it. But there is always a part of me that thinks I need to, that thinks I need to say the thing out loud to someone.

There is something about the shame that pushes me toward truth, toward connection.

Because what I often find to be true is this: We need to know we’re not alone, and we might never know we’re not alone, unless one of us has the courage to be vulnerable first.

Shame thrives in secrecy, in isolation, in darkness.

I don’t want to spend my life there.

I want to live in the light.