Sorting the Definitions

"Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. Women often experience shame when they are entangled in a web of layered, conflicting and competing social-community expectations."  Brene Brown

And since I was talking about who I am - I suppose there really wasn't any way for me to get out of the whole thing without feeling shame. 

'Without justifying or condemning ourselves, we do the courageous work of opening to suffering. This can be the pain that comes when we put up barriers or the pain of opening our heart to our own sorrow or that of another being. We learn as much about doing this from our failures as we do from our successes. In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience-our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity." Chodron

I am very good at empathy and compassion. I guess what I need to figure out is either - what to do when I don't get the return ticket, or what am I resisting in myself when I can't be empathetic. I think the latter is going to be a lot easier than the former for me.

And then there is the whole - dealing with the social anxiety, which isn't even a problem much anymore - I think it is more stuck to this feeling of shame I have acquired as a result of hearing that all that work amounted to nothing when it mattered. 

I'm going to go back and start reading that book my mom gave me. The one where I write all my awesomeness in. Because I think it's time to remember who I am. And I don't have to derive any of my own worth from people who are building a world I am trying to dismantle. I think I'm just a little bit starting to get unstuck, finally.