Shame is an ingrained reality in all of us. We have all been embarrassed into shame or shamed at some point in our lives and it exists in us as a very raw, dark place. We very seldom ever see or confront our shame for very long. And it isn’t necessary that we do. We do, however, experience shame in its leakage into an underlying, almost abiding state of guilt. We touch these dynamics when we are in a DownSpiral. The further down you get in a DownSpiral the greater the vacuum that is created. This vacuum gets filled by some kind of guilt, anxiety and doubt. We like to believe that “digging it out” and facing it will heal this shame and guilt. It won’t

 While shame and its seepage of guilt occur in the DownSpiral and not the UpSpiral, it is only by being in an UpSpiral that we really “attach” to our longings, desires, and truest “wantings.” Take these deep desires and wantings, along with the permission to be imprecise about them for a while, and form them into goals. Then from a collection of goals, formed over time, start to define and articulate your unique and personal vision for your life. The goals and vision are always malleable. They can change over time. But as you name that vision, it will navigate you to your passion, and to higher and higher levels of “wanting” for greater and greater good. Your personal vision heals shame by establishing and growing new neuropathways in the brain and letting the old ones, fed too much by too many retreats and too much attention given to negative core beliefs and “darkness,” die the slow death they will surely die.