Efrain Martinez @martefrain_: how have you dealt with being ashamed?
ANSWER:
I’ve been ashamed all my life. Ashamed when I wasn’t smart enough. Ashamed when I lost something in a competition. Ashamed when I lost money. Ashamed when my hedge fund had a down month. Ashamed when a business wasn’t improving every day. Ashamed when I lost my wife. Ashamed when I lost my home (twice). Refusing to admit to people even though the evidence was perfectly laid out in front of them in the real estate section. I get ashamed that I have to wipe myself when I go to the bathroom. It’s disgusting.
Why the hell did God give humans intestines and livers and kidneys. It’s disgusting. I wish I was a robot. Or bionic. The bionic stomach. It burns up all the waste that gets stuck there.
Here’s what I’ve written about shame:
“I got tired of being ashamed of things. I give up. I don’t want to be ashamed of anything anymore. Shame is not who I am. It’s just an ugly sweater I wear. Time to change sweaters. When I wear the same clothes too many days in a row, Claudia reminds me to change clothes. “You smell too much.”
Shame is one of those things that’s hard to change out of. We cling to it because it feeds something inside of us that we are afraid to give up. It feeds our perfectionism. It feeds out hypnotized visions of what success is. It’s a Halloween costume that we think looks better than our real self. But it doesn’t. It’s cheap plastic nylon whatever. Shame, and pretending to be perfect, limit our freedom but nobody taught us that in college.
And it oozes from the pores in our skin and the smell is unmistakable. Time to shower. Time to breathe in other smells. Time to be naked.”