Credentials? Shame Doesn't Care
all my degrees could never + replay
I have a degree in counselling & psychotherapy - two degrees, actually.
I have a diploma in spiritual guidance & soul accompaniment. I have two coaching certifications. One teacher training. Countless certificates and boxes, kindles and shelves full of books.
You know why?
Because I learned early: success is something you DO. Worthiness is in achievement.
Sometimes I look at my wall of qualifications and wonder what I was really trying to achieve.
If I’m honest, I think much if it was an attempt at qualifying myself. Proving myself. Protecting myself from the voice of shame that taunts & tells me: you are simply not enough.
The upside, however means you’re in fairly good hands. I’m qualified to do this work, professionally, at least.
However, shame likes me to think that not yet having “mastered” this nervous system of mine, negates all that work.
And I am deeply uncomfortable with not doing anything to FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY.
If accessing my ventral state (that regulated place of safety and calm) could have been achieved with sheer determination, intellect or money, I’d have solved this problem years ago.
But it can’t. So I’ve been working lately with the somatics of my patterns.
Because after all, it’s not through the mind alone we come to knowing, it’s also through the body, through meaning & purpose, feedback & experience.
And I love to think of journaling as a container for the relationships you develop with and between all your sources of knowing - which, in my experience, yields a life of choice, dignity and intention.
Journalling Is A Somatic Practice.
Journaling is what I do when the storms roll through and I know I must DO NOTHING but I can’t stop moving. So I journal instead of reacting.
It’s how I interrupt my own inertia.
It works for me because journaling is a type of doing that’s actually a practice of being.
That’s what we do on our weekly calls here we gather to be with ourselves and it’s not me but the poems that guide us.
It took me years to figure out how to teach journaling until I realised I don’t need to. Journaling is an instinct.
What I do is create the conditions. Hold space. Invite inspiration.
I Leave the discovery to each person.
This week:
One of us showed up worried she couldn’t go “deep enough.” Instead of forcing depth, she just showed up. And realised: maybe I don’t need to change everything. Maybe I’m fine as I am.
Another has journeyed with this poem five times. This Sunday she got stuck on “but you didn’t stop.” Her brain fought back: But you did stop. Why? On our call, she sat with that contradiction until she could name it.
A first-timer worried about doing it “right.” Then she “just splashed some colour” and had a breakthrough: changing the phrase “mend my life” to “mend your life” - recognising how much energy goes to managing everyone else instead of trusting her own instincts.
As for me
This week I had two difficult moments. Both involved comparing myself to other women. Both triggered shame.
But instead of suppressing it, I named it. I journaled about it. And in the naming and the journaling and the space held for me to process, something shifted.
I became regulated.
What I’m learning is the importance of spaces where you don’t have to perform. Relationships where you don’t manage emotional landscapes that aren’t yours. Where you’re free to tend your own.
When all parties invest in themselves, in their relational skills, in naming what’s real and nobody is performing, shame gets contained. Doubt gets witnessed. Joy becomes more embodied.
That’s what I offer & I hope you will join us.
I am working on a little something fun to celebrate our first 100 paying subscribers. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting close.
My goal is to have 100 journalers on deck by the end of July. We are currently at 62.
Now Is Your Chance To Join us. I’ll come up with something good.
€10/month gets you:
Twice Weekly sessions where naming what’s real is safe
A community learning to replace performance with realness
The space to share this life changing practice together
A BONUS exclusively for our 1st 100 paying subscriptions
This week’s journal session replay + upcoming dates are “below the fold” for paying subscribers (thank you). Scroll all the way down.
Amanda xx
p.s.
Want A Free Art Journal Lesson?
Rooted in the question “What if the thing you think disqualifies you is actually your creative superpower?”
For years, I disqualified my art because I couldn’t draw.
I thought that limitation meant I’d never be a ‘real’ artist.
I was wrong.
