Shame has got to be one of the most uncomfortable experiences of human life. When I’m working with my clients on shame and I ask them what shame feels like, they might tell me it’s a sickness in their stomach or a thick, sludge-like energy that makes them want to crawl out of their skin. Shame has the power to make you want to do almost anything to get away from that feeling.

And yet, every feeling that we are capable of feeling has a purpose and a reason. Sometimes that reason goes back to our very survival. So, what could be the upside of shame?

Self love is, essentially, the opposite of shame. When we behave in alignment with the idea that we are worth loving as we are, we in alignment with the idea that there’s nothing wrong with us, that we deserve, for example, healthy food, enough sleep, and pleasurable experiences. For some of us, that causes a kind of rebound effect where we end up falling back into self-punishment and in our familiar old hole of shame.