I thought I’d given up shame 

I have just been for a run, and the universe was definitely sending me signs. As a coach I thought I’d given up shame. But I discovered that I still experience shame and more importantly it’s been holding me back

First I ran past a penny on the ground. If you are spiritual, you’ll know that this can be viewed as a sign that the universe was sending me abundance. Unfortunately, I rejected it by not picking it up. My thoughts were “what will people think if they see me pick money off the ground?”

1 minute later I ran past a purse that someone had dropped. I felt awful, but I didn’t pick it up. I could have got it back to its owner whereas the person who did pick it up might keep it.

The universe was giving me the opportunity to return abundance to others.  I believe the universe was testing me because I like to think I always do the right thing… but this time I didn’t.

5 minutes later I ran past two lotto scratch cards, again I didn’t pick them up. For the past 5 minutes, I had been beating myself up and telling myself “next time I’ll pick it up” yet I still didn’t.

I was allowing shame to sabotage my success

I realised that I was sabotaging myself and sending signs to the universe that abundance was not important to me, even though that’s not true. So I decided to work out the reason I was sabotaging myself so that I could upgrade my behaviour.

Firstly, I didn’t want to be judged. I usually don’t care what others think, so there had to be more to it than that. I asked for help in a Facebook group that I’m a member of to unravel my thoughts.

Who are you afraid of judging you?

Someone in the group asked, “who are you afraid of judging you and what will they say?” That question helped me realise two things:

• I was afraid of people thinking I was poor. This brought back a memory of money being tight when I was young. At one point I had holes in my school socks, my parents couldn’t afford new ones, and I can still remember hearing people talking about them behind my back.
• I was afraid of someone thinking I would steal the money in the purse rather than try to get it back to its owner. It brought back the memory of getting caught taking money from my Mum’s handbag.

Those memories were filled with shame. The tagline of my website is Be More Brazen. The definition of brazen is bold and without shame, yet I was allowing my abundance to be impacted by shame.

The funny thing is, I felt shame for not doing the right thing and picking the purse up. Although shame is never a helpful emotion, in this case, it was at least useful.

It was a signal to me that I had done the wrong thing whereas shame about what people might or might not think is plain ridiculous.

Where are you leaving money and opportunities?

The next great question was “where else are you leaving money and opportunities lying on the path in your life?” I immediately thought of 2 examples in the last few weeks that I had let pass by.

I dread to think what the total sum of lost opportunities was over the years.

No failure only feedback

If you’ve been following me for a while you will know that I genuinely believe that there is no failure only feedback so in this case the lessons and reminders I got from this situation were:

• It doesn’t matter if its true, it matters if it’s useful.  Was the universe really sending me a sign? I don’t know, but it’s definitely helpful for me to believe that the universe has my back.
• Caring less about what others think is something I still need to work on
• I still feel shame in some situations.
• It’s essential to get to the root cause of the problem if you want to change your mindset.
• Ask, ask, ask. If I had not asked for help and allowed myself to be vulnerable I would not have been able to get to the root of the problem.

Is shame holding you back? Let me know in the comments below.