Shame doesn’t strike like a fist. It rots its way in. Shame unravels us at our most fragile seams. It burns holes in our façade and allows light to shine on our self-doubt. It whispers to us, reminding us that we are imposters and, by the way, are not actually fooling anyone. It’s unique in its devastating ability to make us feel exposed and worthless. Compounding that, our training bludgeons out of us even our ability to have empathy for ourselves. We learn to stop feeling our feelings, just as we are trained to disengage from the feelings around us. We may try to delete the feeling, like an
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