Shame: The Nature of Darkness and Light

         Often in my practice, sessions turn towards the nature of shame. Shame is a place that we usually ‘end up’ in, if we follow the thread of our fears.  Many of my clients have heard me say: “shine a flashlight into the dark corners”. Is it less scary with the light on? What do you see?” I remember my own teachers and trainers using this analogy. It is one of those ‘original nuggets’ that have been passed down in psychotherapy circles for decades, for good reason.

    There is something universal about shame in relation to darkness and light. Darkness represents our forgetting. Forgetting our true nature, forgetting our true worthiness. Forgetting that our birthright is love and enough-ness. No child is born unworthy. Shame comes along later, from the outside. We swallow it, hold onto it, bury it, and make it our own. Shame makes us forget. 

The good news is, because it comes from the outside in, we can also take it out, and put it down. This is possible. 

I recently came across ‘The Nature of Darkness and Light’ by Osho. He talks about darkness as a non-entity. I think shame is a bit like this too. It is frightening, it seems powerful, aggressive and true, and yet, bewilderingly, it also doesn’t really exist. Osho says: “Let us first meditate on the nature of darkness. It is one of the most mysterious things in existence- and your life is so much involved with it, you cannot afford not to think about it. One has to come to terms with the nature of darkness, because the same is the nature of sleep, the same is the nature of death, and the same is the nature of all ignorance”  Think about this: what if darkness is not actually real?

Meaning, what is darkness, if you simply can’t go out and find it? It exists only in the absence of something. You cannot create more darkness. How? What is it made of?  It is simply what shows up when the light is not there. It is not the presence of something real. Light is different. Light you can create and destroy. But you cannot create darkness, and you cannot destroy it either. It is always there, without being there at all. The problem is, we believe in our own darkness, and make it wrong.

Darkness is not aggressive- it cannot destroy light. How can it destroy the light, if it doesn’t exist? How can darkness destroy even a small flame? It can’t jump on it. It can’t put it out on its own. There is no flight in it. It is simply an absence. How can it attack us? And how can you defeat darkness, if it is not a thing that exists? How can you fight with something which is not? And yet, we are always fighting with ourselves and our own shame. We live entire lives and weave complicated narratives around our perceptions of our deficiencies. Shame is not creative. Deep down we know this is true. The phrase “a shot in the dark” is another way to describe a wild and unsubstantiated guess. 

Osho says anger is not real, it is just the absence of compassion. Ignorance is not real, it is just the absence of enlightenment. Shame is not real, it is just the absence of self love. It is the forgetting. 

The real darkness is forgetfulness. Your forgetfulness of the true nature of your light can invite things in like shame, anger, greed, jealousy, hate. Forgetfulness is the real darkness. In addictions, we forget ourselves, who we are, where we are going. All direction is lost. Forgetfulness is the disease, and self-remembering is the cure. The same can be true of shame - shame is a forgetting of your intrinsic value and nature. Try to remember yourself more and more in a day, when the self criticism comes in. Remember your light. Even if you have a lot of pain, and have suffered a lot, the light is never gone. Darkness cannot destroy it. Feel the pain, without identifying with it. 

    If you want to do something with darkness, you will have to do something with light. Never fight with things that are not. Shame is not real. It feels heavy and it feels like truth. But it always lies to us. It always says to us ‘you are not enough’. That is the bedrock of shame. It is a skilled manipulator! It is linked to our fears. But shame is uncreative and predictable. This is the good news. Once you see it for what it is, you can predict its next move. If you pull back the curtain, it is a tiny little Oz, speaking from a megaphone standing on a soapbox. Reclaiming responsibility for our light means remembering our true nature as whole and worthy beings, for no other reason than simply existing.