This summer, I have been taking a course at a local community center. I remember the first evening I showed up. I was feeling a bit shy, wondering if I had found the right room and the right set of people….and no sooner had I settled, relieved, into my seat than the course leader asked for all the new people to stand up! Everyone else applauded enthusiastically. My face got red. “I feel like a rockstar just for showing up” I whispered, embarrassed, to the newbie next to me.
The leader’s next words put a whole new spin on my interpretation. “How many of you newcomers felt embarrassed just now when we were clapping for you?” he asked. “How many of you felt like you didn’t deserve applause – when all you had done is show up.” I looked around the room and saw a surreptitious nodding of new heads, including my own. He continued by saying, “Embarrassment is when others are loving us more than we are loving ourselves!”
I was even more embarrassed to realize that this had never occurred to me. I had always thought that a sensation of embarrassment meant that I had done something wrong, said something wrong, worn the wrong outfit to the wrong place, chosen the wrong friends or the wrong menu item or the wrong body or the wrong life. Somehow, love had never factored in to my prior experiences of embarrassment. Nor had it ever occurred to me to take time to love myself through embarrassing moments.
I’m not sure I heard another word the leader said after those words, but I did leave that first session of our course with a lot to think about!
A few weeks later, I was attending a conference in California. One morning I found myself sitting beside a gentleman whom, upon hearing about my work with eating disorders recovery, just insisted on telling me all about his supermodel girlfriend with zero percent body fat. Then he turned and looked me up and down, and stated with mind-boggling insensitivity (or so I thought), “It is hard for me to imagine that you ever had an eating disorder.”
I can safely say I felt zero love for either of us in that particular moment. Instead, I felt a deep, hot wave of embarrassment course through me. All the old fears arose – if I don’t look sick, and I need help again some day, will anyone believe me? If I don’t look sick now, will people think I was never sick at all? The ED voice chimed in with a (not) helpful and (not) accurate assertion that the opposite of looking sick is looking “fat”. In spite of my inner distress, I managed to respond quietly, “Well, I can understand that, but just imagine me X pounds thinner.” His eyes got round. He uttered a single word, “WOW.”
In that one word, I found my salvation. Because in that moment, I saw awe in his eyes – respect – along with a newfound understanding of what life with an eating disorder must have been like for me, and for others like me. I realized that my embarrassment wasn’t really embarrassment at all – rather, it was simply a way for me to point out to myself that my level of respect for my achievement did not presently match his level of respect for what I had accomplished! I perceived how my embarrassment had nothing to do with his assessment of me. But it had everything to do with my assessment of me.
Interestingly, as soon as I adjusted my interpretation of our exchange, the embarrassment quickly faded…to be replaced with a strong and abiding inner sensation of self-love.
Today I realize that embarrassment may simply be the way we get our own attention – it is our own gentle reminder to ourselves in moments of stress that we love ourselves more than we think we do, more often than we think we do, and even when we think we do not. Embarrassment is our eternal, faithful, well-intentioned servant, as it arises just when we need it most and neatly circumvents the usually complex communications that are constantly shooting back and forth between ourselves and our environment, our body and our mind, our mind and and our heart/spirit, our old beliefs and new understandings…and sends us straight to our HEART.
So the next time you feel a wave of embarrassment, ride it all the way back to where it arose from – your own heart. Harness its raw power to rekindle your awareness of your powerful love for yourself. In this way, you can instantly reconnect with the very same self-love that is fueling your battle against your eating disorder – the very same love that believes you have what it takes to survive, and CAN. And WILL. And ARE.
Recovery is worth any amount of embarrassment it takes to get there. And so are YOU.
Warmly and with HOPE,
Shannon
