Shame Sandwich/A lesson in love and shame
Weekly Special
My dear beloved customers,
Today, our “Café 42” weekly special is a direct celebration of the so hilarious
’s Shame Sandwich on Substack. I never get enough of her stories!
A few days ago, I swallowed my own shame sandwich and decided to try a brand new shame free recipe to replace this one.
When things are slow at Café 42, I can indulge myself with other activies such as being a webmaster for my husband’s professional website. He had chosen a new theme for it and I was finalizing paying for it when I noticed a small header on the theme designer’s website advirtising for a 50% off promocode I, of course, hadn’t used, thus paying it full price.
My ego entered the room triumphantly accompanied by a symphonic orchestra and lyrically started to sing : “How dumb in the world can you be for not being able to do such a simple task as to enter a promo code and save money?! You could have easily saved twenty-five bucks! That’s too bad! Now it’s too late! How can you have missed such a great opportunity! Shame on you!” The blame song carried on for at least fifteen minutes, letting my stomach painfully constrict itself while I was stuffing my blame sandwich into my mouth which turned itself into a shame one when I thought about telling my husband about my humble mistake.
When shame hit me, I decided to start chewing more slowly, exploring each element of the sandwich to understand where that shame came from and what it was actually about. I looked right in the eyes of my still joyfully singing tenor ego and there it was: the fear of not being worth of love because I was so imperfect, my so many flaws rendering me not suited for love: “Hi Mom!”, I said waving at my mom who had made a thundering entrance on stage as a back singer in my ego orchestra.
“OK, Ego. That’s it! You’d better wrap it up for I’ll deal with you and that diminishing song when hubbie will be home.”
Meanwhile, I decided to replace my ego by Lou Reed and take a walk on the joy side for though I had - momentarily - lost money, the Universe had given me the opportunity to save money and I was so grateful for that! It put a delicate joyful blanket of love around my ego who was now muttering its song.
My new mantra for the last few weeks has been that “I allow myself to be taken care of and that every people I cross path with are eager to take care of me”. It is an important part of me I want to heal: being able to surrender and trust that the Universe and other people around me are happy to help me when I need it for I am happy to do the very same when they need help too.
My childhood conditionned me to rely solely on myself to do things in life and take care of myself, turning me into a very efficient control freak doomed to end up in burns out time and again.
What I’ve noticed these past months is that my first reaction when I’m expecting something from the Universe or anyone else, the first vision that crosses my mind is the one of not getting it and striving - angrily - to retrieve what should be rightfully mine. So, each time my ego tries to feed me those kind of lies, I oppose him with my new mantra. More than merely by-passing my ego, it helps me shift my unconscious belief that everybody wants to hurt me - “Hi Boy George!” - and change the outer ways and energy I offer to the world. I can feel a true expansion shift in my body, the peace expanding its territory where constriction used to lie, simply by stating that phrase.
Words, true or false, are deeply magical when you choose to believe in them.
Of course, another way to heal that insecure part of me is to begin to notice when I am offered opportunities to be taken care of and be grateful for them rather than ignoring or despising them. The more I notice them, the more they appear in my life. It’s like a treasure hunt organized by the Universe: The Universe - and my guides - put signs in my sight and it’s up to me to look for them and notice them. Once I have found one, another one will appear a little further on the road, like with Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs.
So, back to my story, following the idea that the Universe wanted to take care of me if I only let it do it, I wrote an email to the template designer’s website customer service explaining the situation and asking them if they could refund me the 50% off the price I’d paid, knowing that I would only get an answer from them during the following night, giving me time to address my ego. I thought there was a good chance they would positively answer my request and it was a great way to test the “people I cross path with are eager to take care of me” part of my mantra.
When my husband came home, while talking about our respective day on the couch, I let shame emerge again and told him what had happened to me. Of course, he gave me the obvious response that it could have happened to anyone and though it was too bad it was no big deal either. And shame vanished.
For a few seconds, I explored the emotional void that was left, feeling a little hollow where shame was previously standing. I heard my ego’s faint voice ask me “That’s it? No cries? No abandonment? He still loves you?” and I answered quietly “Yes. He still loves me for mistakes are just mistakes, everybody experience them. My mistakes don’t define who I am nor whether I deserve to be loved or not.”
It was the very first time I had responded to that kind of situation in a different way, allowing my brain to create a new point of reference for my ego to react with and me to act upon next time, for that’s what our brain does with our experiences, it creates an emotional point of reference from which we automatically react though we very often don’t remember the original point/event it is refering to.
That all sequence opened a new space of peace inside of me and allowed me to shed a new layer of my wounded self, expanding love a little further.
And you know what? The customer service refunded me! “Of course it did”, my inner voice joyfully sings, “for the Universe and every people you cross path with are eager to take care of you!”
Lots of love,
Geay
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I love this beautiful reframing!
"for the Universe and every people you cross path with are eager to take care of you!"... YASSSS. I love this. And am going to practice remembering this and celebrating this too! Thanks for sharing this story, and in doing so, reminding me that I'm not so alone in my feelings of shame. And, that questioning and sharing and receiving are all such powerful things to do. ♥️