A few weeks ago I was taking a shower detangling my sudsy hair between my fingers, when out of nowhere an old painful memory washed over me, dousing me in a warm bath of sticky shame.
Shadow thoughts came flooding back:
“Ugh gross, you were so ignorant and unprepared. You thought you were great, but you were pathetic.” 😬
“Your coworkers would never guess. Make sure they never find out.” 😞
Yikes, my inner critic can be vicious…. yours too?
HIDING IN THE DARK
In an instant, standing naked—and safe—in the shower in my cozy little home, I disintegrated from an accomplished tech marketer who operates daily with a satisfying sense of mastery over her work, into a humiliated, frantic little girl on the run from the darkness of her own perceived unworthiness.
The memory had transported me nine years back to one of my first tech interviews. Walking in I had been overconfident, even arrogant, despite being clueless about the experience and skills required for the role, especially when it came to using data, metrics and frameworks to make decisions.
My history as a professional horseback rider and small business owner had not prepared me to play with the “big boys”—and I didn’t even know it. I say “big boys” both facetiously and in all seriousness. I was trying to break into a world dominated by mid-20’s male startup founders who were unlocking access to billions of dollars in venture funding.
Within minutes the interviewer’s razor sharp questions methodically carved out my misbegotten confidence. As I bumbled my way through nonsensical answers, a sickeningly hot flush crawled up my chest, neck and face until it slinked behind my hairline into the scorched earth that had been my brain. Agonizing silences choked the oxygen out of the room like an invisible toxic gas, as the interviewer, who happened to be the founder and CEO, icily held eye contact. He cut the interview 15 minutes short, visibly annoyed I had wasted his time.
Walking out of his office I was vibrating with shame, self-loathing coursing through my veins.
The lion’s share of my identity had been wrapped up in being the “Achiever,” and this showing, and another that followed at a different startup, though mercifully with a far kinder interviewer, did not align with that identity.
Side note: It took four years of working in tech and investing in my learning to start to rebuild my confidence again.
shining light on shame
But that day standing in the shower mid-shame spiral, I had a beautiful moment of waking up(🙏) that lifted me out of an ancient and destructive dance of self-recrimination. With empathetic objectivity, I saw how cruel I had been and was still being to myself many years later.
Desperate attempts to escape my feelings kept me a fugitive, on the run, trapped by my own shame. I was given the blueprint by our culture and I unwittingly built the prison with my own bare hands.
With that moment of clarity, this is what I did:
I stopped avoiding. I didn’t want to run from the dark shadows of the shameful memory anymore.
I found my body again. I breathed deeply into the bottom of my lungs, belly, legs, feet, arms, and hands. I focused on the calming warmth of the water on my skin.
I allowed myself to feel the comfort that the breath brought.
I turned towards the icky feelings. I used the fraction gain in regulation I got from the breath as a toe hold to steady me.
I embraced who I am and who I was, making space for my mistakes. I shined light into the dark corner inside myself where I had been afraid to look.
Instead of trying to madly shake off the sticky gunk of shame, I wrapped my arms around myself (literally) and allowed myself to feel it, to comfort it, to thank it for protecting me. I let it wash over me, and as I stood under the warm stream of water it released me. My body and heart reflexively softened as the invisible tar-like substance dissolved and disappeared down the drain.
Just like that, I was free.