How to Get Rid of Shame (3/3)

What If Shame Doesn’t Mean What We Think It Means – Part 3

Whooooo boy! We are taking a deep dive into shame and I hope it’s stirring things up for you! You’re going to learn how to get rid of shame. And how to use shame as a motivation to become all that you’re meant to be. We’re going to look at how you can change your locus of conformity – and what the heck that is!

(If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, you can click here to do that. And Part 2 is right here.)

Using Shame as Motivation to Become More

That’s a tricky one. Shame is a very powerful tool – we have to be careful when we start to play with it.

But, I trust that you’re ready to go down these rabbit holes with me. I’m not into spiritual fluff so I’m going to lay it out for you. We’re going to talk about what it could look like to use shame in a healthy way. Once you’ve seen it, then you can make the choice whether you want to use it consciously or not.

Just remember that you can’t just repress and ignore shame. You will deal with it. The choice is whether you do it consciously or by wallowing in the drama and pain it causes.

Are You Moving Away From Shame or Toward Your Dreams

Okay, let’s start with this. In Creating a Powerful Pivot Point, I talk about away from and towards motivations. As well as why it’s important to have both. Here’s the easiest way to think about them:

Are you moving AWAY FROM something you despise or are your moving TOWARD something you desire?

Away from motivations are rocket fuel. They’re super-chargers. They give us a boost like nothing else.

When our problems are smack in our face, and we can’t ignore them any longer. That’s when we become highly motivated to get away from them. Hence, the term ‘away from’.

We start with ‘away from’ motivations. They motivate us into intense action… to begin.

If you are just totally DONE with not making money in your business, for instance, (and I work with a lot of women in this situation), then you have a powerful reason to get away from that pain.

Are you disgusted with how badly you’re doing? Is it hard to look at yourself in the mirror? Are you done with lying to yourself about how much you’re under-performing compared to the image of who you’re meant to be?

Y’know, the image that you carry around in your head and your heart? The you that you would be if you could just make it work – then you’re feeling shame.

(and I’m not saying that any of that is a good thing… it can be very destructive. but, it is a thing that we all encounter. and I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t happen just so we can all stay fakely positive – no spiritual by-passing here! let’s get down and dirty…)

But, y’see, here’s where the magic is. If we can surrender to it.

Choose Your Tribes Wisely

Instead of feeling shame to get smaller, to hide and conform to the tribe, you are feeling shame to excel. Your shame propels you forward. Your disgust with yourself, moves you toward your destiny and who you are meant to be.

And that’s very interesting. Remember, in Part 2, I said that shame tells us when we are doing something wrong and tells us to conform.

That hasn’t changed.

But what has changed, then, you might ask…

Very good question. Very smart question.

And the answer is this: your tribe has changed.

When you are trying to fit into the tribe that is around you – your family, your community – you’re trying to fit in with mundanes. In my world, mundanes are the people who get up, go to their jobs, or not, come home, and watch tv. People who watch reality tv and gossip about people out there doing something instead of being the people out there doing something.

(to paraphrase Brené Brown in her recent Netflix special, you’re either in the arena doing something, or you’re sitting around outside the arena, judging the people doing something.)

When you want to be like them, like that tribe, then you are dooming yourself to stay small and hidden, and being forever shamed to conform.

Moving Our Locus of Conformity

That’s your locus of conformity.

The people around you – your tribe – create your standards of normal and right and true. They define your locus of conformity – what you centre your reality around. Your locus of conformity is the sum total of your norms and mores and beliefs about what it means to be a good person.

Your locus of conformity is the sum total of your programming (your norms, values, beliefs, etc.) about what it means to be a good person. It’s your inner sense of what you must do to be acceptable and worthy and good.

Vanessa Long

But… (see! how great is that word?)

But. But, when you change your tribe, when you consciously, intentionally, passionately choose a new tribe, your Unconscious Mind starts to build a new locus of conformity.

If you choose to align with entrepreneurs – successful entrepreneurs – then your beliefs, your norms and mores, your values, and your actions will start to change. Your locus of conformity will start to shift.

Aligning with Success and Destiny

Actions that were once acceptable will become unacceptable. For instance, maybe your family identified you as ‘the flaky one’. They know that you show up less than 50% of the time. That they can’t rely on you to follow through.

(the sad truth is that you probably do it in your business as well)

You simply won’t be like that anymore. It won’t be acceptable. To you or to the people you have chosen to conform with.

And actions that were once unacceptable will become expected. Like writing a book, or giving a talk at centre stage, or making well over $250,000 in one year.

You will become this new person to avoid the discomfort and shame of not fitting in.

Oh, goddess! When you choose to align your tribe with God. When you work with Him and allow Her to work through YOU, then your locus of conformity transforms into something so magical and divine that you simply cannot help but step out into your light and start to rock the world.

You become a city on a hill, shining your beacon brightly to the world. You will surely not be content to hide your light under a bushel basket.

No.

Choosing Divine Alignment

When you align with the Divine, you step out of darkness and into light and what was once considered shameful and risky becomes normal and expected.

Do you see?

We will still feel shame.

Shame is a gift. We were designed this way.

We just need to learn what to do with it.

Our job is to learn how to shift our locus of conformity from the small-mindedness of our tribes of origin to the cosmic possibilities of the Divine.

Vanessa Long

We have to be very intentional about who’s opinion we value and who’s opinion we let wash past us as so much harmless wind.

Our destiny is learning to choose between chains and freedom.

Instead of Worrying About How to Get Rid of Shame, Focus on Becoming Your Destiny

And that is the ultimate switch we are talking about with shame – from unconsious acceptance and smothering to conscious discernment and intentionality.

Once you start to implement the practices in your own life, you will see the shift start to happen.

You will start to feel more at ease in your own body and you will start to breathe air that feels a little more free and a little less heavy.

As you continue on this path, the benefits only increase.

Coming back to motivation strategies, remember we said that shame can be rocket fuel to get you moving powerfully in the direction of your destiny. When you’re aligned with a tribe that lifts you up, this is what will happen.

To fit in with that tribe, you’ll do whatever it takes to become the person you are meant to be – the person who accomplishes and achieves and changes the world – who breaks their generational chains.

You’ll have to. Because otherwise the shame will just accumulate and become toxic. To stay away from that horrible feeling of shame, you’ll step out, take the risks, and make the changes. Even though it’s uncomfortable.

Even though it’s scary.

Freedom from Shame

And, just like those rocket boosters are so useful at the beginning to help the spacecraft achieve escape velocity and move past the powerful gravitational pull of the earth (your original tribe), at some point shame, just like those boosters, becomes dead weight and is no longer needed.

At some point, you’ll start to feel the pull of desire. The tug of destiny. When that happens, you’ll start shifting the balance of emotions inside of you from the ‘negative’ emotions (see, they’re not so negative when we see what they’re really for, are they?) of shame and guilt and anger and hurt and sadness toward the lighter emotions of desire and joy and happiness.

You’ll feel powerful emotions such as curiosity, forgiveness, acceptance, gratitude, passion, connection, alignment, and a deep feeling of satisfaction that your life is helping to make the world a better place.

Feel the Love

Finally, there is love. Love for self. Love for the world. And love for your tribes – all of them.

As you continue to lean into these positive, toward emotions, the gravitational pull of your own personal universe will shift away from where you were on the Line of Fate – it will stop trying to pull you back down – to where your Destiny is leading you.

(that is why I created the Seasons of Success and that is why you need to start with Creating a Powerful Pivot Point. they’re designed to get you out of shame and moving toward freedom and destiny. they’re a step-by-step guide on how to get rid of shame forever. I think that they’re the most important courses I’ve ever created. I want this for you so much. so much.)

You will find yourself being pulled faster and faster toward who you’re meant to be and what brings you joy. Your impact and power will continue to grow as your pace and vital life force quicken with these positive emotions.

As that happens, the rocket boosters that were so vital to your early journey – your lift-off – will naturally fall away and lighten your load, freeing you to become more and more of the person you are meant to be. Enlightened. Awakened. Forgiving. Whole.

You won’t have to live in shame anymore, there’ll be no more sitting in a toxic sludge. Not for you. No.

This is How You Get Rid of Shame

As you continue to choose your Line of Destiny, again and again, you’ll learn to discern what it feels like to even start to come close to that old feeling of shame – and that old toxicity – and you’ll take action to get back into integrity before it even becomes a possibility. 

This is one more reason why I believe it’s so important to carefully choose who you align yourself with and what group you bring around yourself to support you as you grow.

It’s why I offer Masterminds. It’s why I run the PowerHouse. To give us a safe place to break our generational chains and ancient shames and practice stepping into freedom and onto the Line of Destiny.

If You Could Only See Your Magnificence

Oh! Goddess! If you could see what I see for you. If you could truly surrender to how magnificent your destiny is. My heart yearns for your freedom. 💝

And, so, if you know that you’re here to help build a new world. If you’re sure that you have a Destiny beyond the mundane. If the idea of being ‘normal’ and standing around the water cooler gossiping about celebrities and reality TV for one more day makes you shudder inside, this is your path.

From shame to freedom.

From despair and hiding to a BIG life, lived with joy and on purpose.

This is your path to becoming the PowerHouse that you know you’re meant to be.

And we’re here to help.

See you next week.

Blessings and grace,
–Vanessa

PS. Seriously, go sign up for Creating a Powerful Pivot Point list now, if you haven’t already. It’s on sale until the end of May and one of the Bonuses is a coaching session with me. The only way to get the coupon code is by being on the Pivot Point list. 

PPS So, just in case I wasn’t clear enough, I’ll say it again here. I believe that instead of learning how to get rid of shame (and other negative emotions), we need to learn how to work with them and use them to our benefit. That is our path to destiny and freedom.

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It makes life so much easier. 😍

Vanessa Long

Vanessa Long is creator of the Seasons of Success and author of Discovering Your Passionate Purpose. Focused on providing straight-forward, no b.s. solutions, strategies, and support to move you from where you are to where you yearn to be. It’s time to tap into your purpose and build a life that expresses all of who you were designed to be.