I Heart Me (14 page)

But on one particular morning I lost myself in my moves and danced the entire length of the two underpasses. I was so into it I didn't see what was ahead. And I had my eyes closed as well.

As I opened my eyes at the end of the second underpass, I was met by the uncomprehending stare of a crowd of construction workers, who were standing there in a state of complete bewilderment.

As I mentioned earlier, at moments of high embarrassment or shame, a large part of our brain shifts resources to fight or flight. Intelligent thinking shuts down. You may have noticed
that at moments like these you tend to say or do something stupid. I was no different. The only idea I could conjure up was to pretend that my phone was ringing. Only I had no phone in my hand. So I answered my fingers and began to talk loudly to a pretend person.

Unsurprisingly, this only added to the construction workers' assumption that I was crazy. I can't blame them, bearing in mind they'd also just watched me dancing by myself.

However, as you know, victory dancing also got me over the shame. I recalled the thoughts and feelings of shame by replaying the scenario in my mind. Then, once I was cringing with embarrassment, I burst into my victory dance. I only had to do this about 10 times consecutively to actually find the whole thing amusing! The power of victory dancing helped me swiftly to turn shame into a smile.

So, devise your own victory dance and practise it. Do it 10 times in a row, either at the moment of shame or afterwards in the privacy of your own home. By the time you reach the fourth or fifth time, you'll have a much harder time focusing on the thoughts and feelings of shame. This is because your brain will already be learning to send resources away from the stress areas and towards the positive areas. Keep it up for the 10 anyway. Repetition is key when you're rewiring brain networks, as you know.

In some ways it's like speeded-up psychotherapy. One of the ways psychotherapy works, at a neurological level, is that we process a memory from a more positive, often adult, perspective.
Although it's a talk therapy, part of its power is that through talking, our brain networks stop connecting the event to stress and negative emotion and rewire to connect it to a more positive set of insights and emotions, essentially moving resources from stress areas to the prefrontal cortex.

It's OK to admit that we feel ashamed or embarrassed. Everyone feels that way sometimes. Reaching out to others can bring us some closure and also give others a chance to be compassionate and perhaps to be honest with us, too.

This is where some magic can happen. In the space of telling someone else how we feel, or how we have been feeling, whether it's a loved one, friend or even a support group, we begin to feel connected. And through connection we come to know that we are
enough
.

Here's a summary of the four steps to shame resilience:

1. Diffuse stress with insight.
   
2. Extract the ‘I am'.
   
3. Dance the shame away.
   
4. Reach out.
   

One of the many things Oscar has taught me is to take myself much less seriously. This is because he's done quite a few
stupid things. He's fallen down holes, somersaulted when trying to pick up a tennis ball while running at full speed, run out in front of cars, jumped up on a park attendant and tried to grab his ‘stick', spotted a bird and dragged me headfirst right through a large group of extremely prickly bushes, much to the amusement of onlookers, and many, many other daft things. At puppy-training classes, the trainer, a former Crufts dog show obedience winner, started to call him ‘Marley', after the book and film
Marley & Me
, about another crazy yellow Labrador.

Had Oscar been a human he'd have gone over some of these antics in his mind again and again, well after the events had passed, gradually moving towards feeling embarrassment and shame. He'd think,
I can't believe I did that. And people saw me. Oh, the shame of it
.

But Oscar doesn't feel shame. He wakes up every morning with the biggest grin on his face, tail wagging furiously when he sees me or Elizabeth. The previous day is behind him. The new day has just begun and it's about to be a good one as he looks around for toys to play with or rip apart, or perhaps contemplates the next piece of mischief he can get up to.

We need to be like Oscar. I don't mean that we should run out into roads or launch ourselves on park attendants of course, but we need to get out of the way of our own life. So much of the pain we feel is down to our interpretation of events and our perception of ourselves and what we imagine people think of us. We attach our identity and self-worth to events and then, if they don't work out in the way we want, we judge ourselves. ‘I am so ________!'
Oscar has taught me to lighten up. Yes, I can do seemingly stupid things, but can't we all? And I don't do them
all
the time… It doesn't mean I'm stupid. It means I'm normal.

To Oscar, seemingly embarrassing or painful moments are small. To humans, they are huge. Herein lies another powerful way to reduce the pain of shame. Here's what to do:

SELF-LOVE GYM:
Shrinking It Down

As you know, your brain doesn't distinguish between real and imaginary. So, think of an event that was embarrassing for you. Now shrink it down! Seriously, imagine it getting smaller. You can even use your hands to shrink it down. Imagine the scene shrinking smaller and until it's insignificantly small. Shrink the sound down as well until it's no more than a faint squeak. Your brain interprets this as the event becoming less significant.

Significant events are large in our minds. They feel real and we can imagine them in great detail, usually in rich colour and sound. Less significant events are harder to recall in detail. The bigger and richer an event is in your mind, the bigger its meaning is to you.

So, shrink those shameful events down! You're not ignoring them. You're not pretending they didn't happen. You're just teaching your brain that they mean less to you.

You might have to do this several times for the same event for it to stick. But once you do, the event will have much less of an emotional impact on you.

Shame sometimes grows out of perfectionism. Perfectionism has been defined as ‘the tendency to set excessively high standards, to rigidly adhere to these standards, and to engage in overly critical self-evaluations'. Taken to unhealthy extremes, it's a black-and-white, win-or-lose, all-or-nothing mentality that's a recipe for unhappiness, low self-esteem and depression.

Don't get me wrong – perfectionism can be healthy. Some perfectionists merely strive for excellence. But if perfectionism stems from the belief ‘If I'm not perfect, I won't be accepted', every attempt to be perfect only makes the statement: ‘I'll be enough
when
…' And each time we define
when
, we push
enough
further away.
Enough
becomes a carrot on a stick.

Perfectionists are hyper-sensitive about other people's opinions, so they often hold back from showing their creations to the world until they are perfect. ‘It needs to be a little bit better before I can show it' is a common mantra. What they're really saying is, ‘
I
need to be a little better before I can show
myself
.'

They hold back because they think others will be as critical about them as they are of themselves. The assumption is that everyone else will see the same inadequacies, failures, bumps and wobbly bits that they see in themselves.

This prevents them from being seen. It prevents them from expanding. It ensures that they are less connected with the world. They shrink back from the world … and their sense of self-worth shrinks with them.

Many readers of this book will not be perfectionists, but if this does describe you, write down the following affirmation:

‘I am not my accomplishments and creations. Regardless of whether I win or lose, succeed or fail, the truth always remains that I
am
enough.'

You may be surprised by how useful affirmations can be. This is because they help to focus your intention.

As you move forward with your self-love project, you will find unhealthy perfectionism disappears. Healthy perfectionism might remain, as you might be inspired to strive for excellence. And you might find that your environment, your products, your creations, become more beautiful than you imagined possible, because you're operating from a different space. Why not try it?

My friend Margaret often tells the story of watching me and a group of my friends being presented with a peace flame for the work we were doing with the charity that we'd set up, Spirit Aid Foundation. She decided then that she had to meet me.

Seemingly by chance, we found ourselves partnered together a few months later on a meditation retreat in India, as the only two representatives from Scotland. We became instant friends.

One of the many things I've learned from Margaret is the power of interacting with people. Margaret talks to everyone. Everyone! And it doesn't matter if they don't speak the same language – she'll find some way of communicating.

After that trip, we ran several workshops together. Margaret had trained as a laughter therapist with a man who came to be her friend, Dr Patch Adams, of the movie of the same name, whose character was played by the late Robin Williams. So we'd travel to events together and she would dress as a clown for the whole trip. She attracted some looks, I can tell you.

One time we were doing a workshop for a large insurance company. We entered the lift to go to the directors' floor. It was occupied by two men in grey suits. They both immediately stared at the floor, clearly uncomfortable, probably due to the fact that Margaret was dressed in clown attire.

I became uncomfortable too, when Margaret began interacting with them. They clearly didn't want to interact at all. The lift floor was much more interesting to them. Margaret was pushing them right out of their comfort zones.

‘What's so nice about the floor?' she asked. ‘Why don't people talk to each other in lifts? Let's talk. Tell me about yourselves.' She spoke in a playful yet kind way. I felt quite embarrassed, though. Her words were as much for me as they were for the grey men.

But by the time we reached our floor, the men had completely loosened up. One of them was actually loosening his tie as he stepped out, his face flushed. They were both smiling as they left the lift. Job done, as far as Margaret was concerned. I could tell they'd enjoyed the trip in the lift. It had been unexpected, but, damn, it had been a breath of fresh air.

It had been a lesson for me too. If it hadn't been for Margaret, I would have gone up those 30 or so floors also staring at the ground. And why? I would have been self-conscious! Embarrassed! Worried I wouldn't know what to say. Thinking people wouldn't want to interact. Assuming people would want me to mind my own business. Feeling vulnerable. Feeling I'd run out of conversation. Feeling shame. I could go on. Do you recognize any of those feelings?

Even though opportunities to connect continually present themselves to us, we hold back, thinking that if we are our authentic selves we won't be accepted. Yet connection is what we all biologically crave. What's happening?

It can be presented in the form of an equation:

Hold back bits of myself = I'll get connections = I will know I
am
enough.

The reality is:

Hold back bits of myself = True connection is not possible = I reinforce I am
not
enough.

So herein lies the simple solution. It really is simple. Here it is:

Go out and connect with people. And connect as yourself!

Margaret taught me to interact with people on purpose. And it's made a real difference in my life. If ever I feel alone, I don't need to stay feeling alone, I can go out and connect with people. I've experienced depression a few times in my life. Connection
brought me out of it. It brings you to life when you do it. It brings others to life, too.

So, don't wait for connections to happen to you. Talk to people. Interact with people in shops, supermarkets, on the street. Talk to your neighbours. Talk to your postman. Meet people. Join a group or a club. Volunteer for a charity. Take a class at college. Learn to dance. Learn a language. Make it your mission to connect with people. Set it as your intention and go out and do it. And do it as
yourself
. Your real self. If you do, you'll start to feel connected.

And because connection is connected, so to speak, with a state of being
enough
, you will also start to know that you
are
enough.