E.15 - Forgetting, Remembering, and the Doorway of Shame

There is a rhythm to being human that we spend a lot of time trying to outsmart: we forget, and then we remember. And then we forget again. In the self-help world, forgetting is usually framed as a failure. If you find yourself back in an old pattern, the narrative is that you have fallen off the wagon of your own healing. You are supposed to stay in the remembering. But what if forgetting isn't a failure? What if it is just the necessary friction of being alive? In this episode, we look at the cyclical nature of forgetting and remembering, and why we cannot have one without the other. We explore what it actually means to lose contact with our inherent wholeness, and we look closely at the most extreme form of forgetting: shame. We also break down the two different kinds of shame—the shame of missing the mark, and the shame of being dehumanized—and how both, if we stop running from them, are actually doorways back to our own humanity. In this episode, we cover: • Why forgetting is not evidence that you are failing at your life • What "wholeness" actually means, and why we have to separate from it to survive • The difference between the shame of your behavior and the shame of being dehumanized • How shame actually points toward your humanity, not away from it • What the "remembering" actually feels like (hint: it's not a permanent state of enlightenment) If this conversation resonated, grab the free ebook of Already Human at www.theunbecominghub.com/alreadyhuman — it's the foundation of everything I make. Find everything else at www.theunbecominghub.com.