Shame on me

Exposing my vulnerable sides - Episode 3, Season 1

Shame on me. I am shit. I am not enough. Nobody loves me. Nobody cares about me. I hate me to hell. I wanna die. Some thoughts that have been accompanying my existence since the very beginning.

Notice how all these words pivot all around the same: I…I…me…me…my….

What is this shame I feel?

Shame (n.)

the etimology of shame comes from old english scamu, sceomu "painful feeling of guilt or disgrace; confusion caused by shame; state of being in disgrace; dishonor, insult, loss of esteem or reputation; shameful circumstance, what brings disgrace; modesty,"

It is attested by c. 1300 as "modesty, shyness, regard for propriety or decency;" by 1580s as "thing or person to be ashamed of." To put (someone or something) to shame "inflict disgrace or dishonor upon"

Also in Middle English "nakedness, private parts, the genitals," as in the Wycliffite Bible's shameful thingis for Latin verecundiora. and shamfast membris for the male genitalia.

No worries, I won’t show any male genitalia here 🤪.

I also won’t delve deeply into the topic of shame; it’s a huge topic on its own.

I will start from the very beginning

The womb

Back then, in the womb, there was nothing. I knew I existed; that’s all.

I have no memories from that time.

I think…the first memories I can recall are from after I was 18 months old. Do you have memories from before that?

As an infant, I began to develop a sense of self. I am my body...I am what others say I am...I am what I do...I am my thoughts and desires...I am my experiences...and then, I began to forget...

…that…

…simply…

I am.

Fast forward 15 years and you’ll find me here:

The hole

As a teenager and young adult until my 24th year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of depression and suicidal attempts (btw all attempts were failed, I have no ghost writing for me)

I am joking since it feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else's life.

One night not long after my 24th birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been.

The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train -- everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world.

The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.

The self

"I cannot live with myself any longer." This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. "Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: Forrest and the 'self that Forrest cannot live with."

"Maybe," I thought, "only one of them is real." I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy.

It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words "resist nothing," as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void.

It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that. I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before.

My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize.

That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before.

Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.

I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind.

This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form.

Later I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent months sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.

🌿

If you've read so far, you may be familiar with these words. It's almost identical to the beginning of "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. I've changed only a few things to describe as close as I can the experience I had when I was 24-year-old.

But all experiences come and go.

Would you like to know what came just after that?

Obviously, I am not Echkart Tolle.

Unlike him, immediately after that experience I went to a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of maniac-depressive psychosis.

And a new experience started. The worst hell you could never imagine.

The overwhelming light

I would not recommend that hell I experienced to my worst enemy — Just in case I have an enemy

I don't have words to explain how extremely painful was what I experienced then. It was something so horrible, so out of this world.

I felt as if all the light of the universe was entering my body—a light so unbearable, so immensely overwhelming. I felt as if my eyes, my head, and my chest were exploding with megatons of energy. I experienced infernal pain, as if all the suffering of the world, all the sorrow of humanity, was coursing through my flesh and bones.

Luckily, experiences always come and go.

That hell lasted only for a short time. Doctors did a good job.

Back to Kansas

After then, my life in the last 30 years has been an ordinary, normal life just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who came back to Kansas to the ordinary, normal life of an ordinary person coping with mundane things.

Luckily the illness has stabilized and in the last 25 years I’ve been fullly stable, just like most people I guess. Nothing compared to the hell I experienced 30 years ago. Now I have a lovely family, a normal job in a software company and a life with its ups and downs just like everyone else.

Thanks to courageous and beautiful persons like

Rebecca Cooley

I decided to make this experience public here in Substack.

Now what?

Now I know that the most painful and the most blissful experiences come and go. I can accept them, I survived them and I am not them.

Now I simply know that I am not any of those thoughts that have been hammering my head all my life. They are still there, but I am not them.

And I still don’t know who I am. This is a discovery journey I started in the womb and I haven’t completed.

I just know that “me” is not what I am.

I just know that I love all of you.

You see, I don’t know many things.

Maybe, only maybe when I die, I will know nothing at all.

Maybe then, I will come back to our true home, where there’s no need to know nothing. Simply be what we are.

Simply accept what we all are.

Simply love what we all are.

In the meantime I’ll keep learning from you all, and experiencing life.

Just in case I die tomorrow,

I want to tell you that

I love you,

all of you,

all 8 billion.

Obviously, I love the whole of nature too.

I know, I know, I know you love me too.

Oh, false alarm — The doctor just messaged me:

“No heart attack anytime soon.”

Phew…

wait a second…

what is…

that 30-ton truck which is driving so fast…

towards me?

uh oh

don’t put flowers on my graveyard

Try to describe this photo with all the level of detail so that a blind person can make an ultra-realistic picture in their mind from your description, with exactly all the petals, leaves, and all the nuances, exactly as it is, exactly where and how every petal is, exactly as the real one.

I can't, and you?

And this photo is not the real one.

Well, you are the one.

And I am blind.

I can't describe you with words either.

I just know…you are a wonder,

indescribably beautiful, a breathtaking experience beyond words.

And you are blooming every moment.

See your perfume?

There is nothing

better

than realize

there is nothing.

You are nothing,

no thing.

You are only peace, silence, bliss, love, power, potential, perspective, passion, compassion, serenity, joy, happiness, fulfillment, enlightenment, understanding, kindness, empathy, grace, unity, balance, wisdom, clarity, strength, freedom, gratitude, presence…

You are no thing.

You are all That.

No no, you are not those words.

Words are nothing.

You are not words, concepts, beliefs, judgements, thoughts, assumptions, limitations, barriers, separation, discriminations, labels, opinions, fears, doubts, prejudices, constraints, boundaries, divisions, conflicts, illusions, projections, negativity, positivity, criticism, attachments, expectations, insecurities, anxieties, distortions…

What are you, then?

You are That.

The nameless, incommensurable, divine, awesomely You.

You are you.

And you are You.

You are a divine human.

And that's why I love you so much.

You are nothing and everything at the same time.

You are all the possibilities, an offer and miraculous gift of this world.

You are in everything in this world.

And this world is in You.

Don't believe my words, they are just words.

See what you are. See your work.

See your holiness.

Simply realize what you are, now.

John 10:34 “Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

Namaste

Gassho

Inshallah

Amen

Your light.

You.

I am…

overwhelmed by all your wisdom and the beauty I find here.

My chest is exploding with happiness.

Forrest, don't cling to that.

Feelings will go away.

What will remain?

You.

You will always be, in service to this world we all share.

You will always be in my heart.

Even when there's a thought about needing to do this or that to feel better, a thought about not being enough, even when you think you are not whole, even then, you are.

You always are, wonderfully you, and obviously, you are not your thoughts.

You are always a wonderful being, and you are always the precious gift of existence.

Yes, I am writing this to you, especially including all the people who ignore me, the people who block me, the people who dislike me, the people who hate me.

I also block, dislike, and hate myself too. Thoughts…Feelings…I often feel I am not enough, that I am not doing enough for this world, for you.

Feelings will go away.

Thoughts will go away.

You will remain.

When I feel I am attacked, when I feel threatened, I feel you.

What I feel then are not my feelings; they are our shared feelings, since you are in me.

In my heart.

We all share the same.

Each of us is a wonder, regardless of external perceptions or our self-judgment.

Each of us is the wonder of life.

You are life.

Feelings will go away.

Thoughts will go away.

You will remain.

Your beauty,

This world,

Your heart.

You are heaven on earth.

You hold beauty and wisdom.

Our shared heart.