Coming to the realisation that you weren’t born flawed or deserving less than others is one of the most profound and life changing experiences you could ever encounter.

One of the biggest themes that runs through my work is shame. And interestingly enough it is also possibly the main factor that keeps many people away from seeking therapy, as when we feel shame we genuinely believe we are flawed.

It was only when I uncovered my own shame, that I began to realise just how embedded shame can be and how much it impacts on our life. As when we experience shame, it is hard to know where our own responsibility ends and others begins.

We believe that the negative experiences we encounter are some kind of default point, and even when someone has blatantly behaved badly towards us, that it must be our own fault for getting into the situation in the first place.

And because shame speaks to us every moment of our life – we often end up believing that there is something inherently flawed within us and not other people – which then results in a total erosion of our self-esteem and self-worth.

This then leaves us with little opportunity to reach out for the things in life we could enjoy, so we end up living the life that our shame tells us we deserve instead.

Shame always carries with it the sense that there is nothing we can do to remove it. We believe shame is who we are and not what has been done to us, and it stops us from feeling and seeking our true potential. Shame is the worst possible thing that can happen to us, because shame speaks to us every moment of our lives that we will "never ever" be good enough. Zara Cordella ~ Conversations with our body.

Where does shame come from?

Because shame is something “we think we are”, we end up forming an identity of our-self which is based on our negative experiences – as opposed to the true essence of who we really are.

This falsely created belief system then manifests itself as a “doubting voice or feeling” every time we begin to think or form a new direction in life.

Shame quickly then becomes our default point, and we end up falsely believing we are contaminated in some way. We believe anything positive we are experiencing is only ever going to be short-lived, or end up going wrong – and any experience of feeling good is foolish, because after all “deep down” we know we can never really achieve what we set out to do.

When I first realised that it was shame that was making me feel like I was being crushed and debilitated and unable to move in any direction other that inwards towards myself. It was at that exact moment that I also felt my positive energy begin to arise.

How do we deal with shame?

Sensorium Therapy is different to other therapies in that it never attempts to remove, cover or convert any of our embedded feelings. Instead it shows us ways in which we can connect with our feelings (all of them), so that on a moment to moment basis we can connect with all they are trying to share with us.

This then allows our negative thoughts to have less power attached to them, and because we are no longer using all our energy to ignore them – our positive feelings can arise to the surface too.

By using all our energy to repress or keep our negative feelings and thoughts at bay – we also repress our positive feelings and keep them at bay too.  All this repression uses up a lot of energy – so is it any wonder we find it difficult to muster up the energy to make changes in our life?

Anger

One area where I see shame occur time and time again, is when a person finds it very disturbing or difficult to get angry. Usually because getting angry means we have a sense of entitlement,  and low and behold if shame is going to let you have that!

So, what we end up with is even more suppression of our real feelings, less authenticity in our relationships and less of a say in how we live our life.

However, when we learn to identify with Sensorium Therapy, why our patterns of behaviours and strategies arose in the first place, and why and how we have relied on these to keep our hurtful experiences at bay. We can then learn to recognise when we are repressing our true feelings.

We can then connect with what our sensations and thoughts are really trying to communicate with us and become aware of when we are about to sabotage ourselves, or when we need to keep moving forward – so that our life becomes a much more connected and fulfilling experience based on truth and reality as opposed to confusion and doubt.

When we do not hear the real voice of our experiences, we struggle because we live in confusion and denial that the messages in our body are real. Yet the truth is that within our bodies the real voice of all our experiences is stored.  We cannot escape this and neither should we as when we connect with all of our truth through touching the places where our body has stored them - only then that we can recognise what serves us well and what doesn't. Zara Cordella ~ Conversations with your body.

If you would like to find out if shame is residing in you or other “answers” within your body then please contact Zara direct on 07756 3366 06 or via her online booking form by clicking here.

Appointments are currently available Monday to Saturday, 10am until 7pm and are priced according to your individual circumstances.