What wants to come in to the world through me?
Psychoanalyst James Hollis implored us that we should periodically ourselves, “What wants to come into the world through me? This is not an ego-driven, narcissistic question. It is a query which summons us to show up, to serve something larger than the familiar, the comfortable.”
If we can accept this concept as truth for the sake of argument, we could imagine that there were unseen psychic forces, spirits if you will, of all sorts of motivations and temperaments, itching for the emotional opening to inhabit mortality through us. Good, bad, and ugly, there are ideas and movements and trends that want to come into the world and often we give them a place to reside.
When tragedy, trauma or catastrophe strikes it creates wounds that are like emotional portals opened on all sides of us, potentially allowing a panoply of “spirits” to inhabit us. Perhaps there is a spirit of vengeance that finds fertile ground in our pain. Maybe the spectre of hopelessness will fill the void. We might grow resentful, jealous, or jaded.
Being publicly disgraced flattens you and then bit by bit you start to rebuild your “self” into three dimensions again. Exactly how and with which psychological components you are rebuilt is crucial to your post-shaming success.
Here are few “spirits” that you would want to have find their way into the world through you after a fall from grace.
Perspective : Not having walked the path of ostracization before, this onslaught of emotion and experience is likely to be entirely new to you. No matter how bloodied and beaten you might be, one things for sure, you are now a more seasoned human being. While the obvious choice for a vantage point is perched atop a tower or mountain, there is a lot to be gained from getting a detailed view from below. You now know what it’s like to wade through the filth of shame and humiliation. You can now empathize more fully with the rest of us sinners. You know what it’s like and will be a valuable resource to those unfortunate souls who find themselves in a similar position. You have now met with Triumph and Disaster and can treat both those impostors just the same (Kipling). And like the concept of the “near miss” you have now gone through something that you would have previously thought would have destroyed entirely and yet, here you are. You now have the perspective of the survivor. You realize that there are things that some things don’t matter as much as you thought they did and that you are more resilient and capable than you give yourself credit.
Humility: The upside to having trudged through shit is that you know that you can trudge through shit if you have to. You now know that you are nothing. You are dirt. And there’s something freeing about that. Alans Watts taught us that the purest and truest reality is nothingness. The sun, the stars, the planets all exist in the void of space. Everything comes from and exists in nothing. You came from nothing and you will return to nothing. All that causes you anxiety and depression is ego; make-believe. It’s not real. Nothingness is real though. You, on your own, don’t mean as much as you thought you did. Your scandal, your shame, your mistakes. They don’t matter. They seem to matter for now but in the grand scheme of things they will be drowned out by the steady stream of nothingness, swallowed up in the void with everything else. You, on your own, are nothing, but this also makes you a part of largest, truest, purest part of the universe. And then when you turn that hourglass around, you realize that this same nothingness is also everythingness.
Wisdom: If you had a biography written about you the reader would discover this era of your life and probably assume that you are an idiot. Who in their right mind would make the mistakes that you have made? Who would risk so much for so little? What were you thinking? Intelligence wise this isn’t your best chapter but this is an excellent opportunity to grow wisdom. Wisdom and knowledge sound alike but they are distinct. Wisdom isn’t what you know it’s what you do with what you know. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. We gain wisdom mostly from our experiences and even more specifically our mistakes. You have a bunch of those recently to draw upon. While your shame won’t help you pass the MCAT, your deeper understanding of what it means to be human and how to treat people who are struggling, and how to keep your head while everyone around is losing theirs (Kipling again) will have increased by the time you emerge from the hell you’re currently or have recently been in. Someone who has never fallen into a hole and suffered in the darkness, not knowing if they’ll ever get out does not have much to offer someone is currently in the hole themselves. The Buddhists teach that life is suffering, well now you’re a life expert.
Grace: I hope that you have had the experience of facing someone who could have judged you harshly but who instead showed you understanding and unconditional love. To be embraced instead of condemned is an experience that reverberates through the ancestral heritage within us. It is human to err and to consequently feel insufficient; and it is divine to be loved anyway. Once you’ve experienced the gift you will want to give it to others, maybe even to the people who have hurt you when you were down. It’s a contagious virus, grace is. You’ll be looking for people who have fallen just so that you can practice your knew skill. Someone going through a messy divorce? Someone accused of stealing from their work? Someone cancelled for their political opinion? Wonderful! They are the perfect target practice for your new found penchant for grace bombing.
Strength: Who would have thought that a human could have gone through what you’ve gone through? The social, emotional, and psychological torture of facing mass rejection and scorn is a deadly storm to withstand, but by Jove you have done it! there is actual strength that you have found in yourself that you didn’t know was there and there is the actual strength you have gained throughout this experience but there is also a secondary strength that comes with the confidence of knowing you can and did survive. Most fights in the wild are posturing so that the opponent gives up. Few strikes have to be actually thrown. Now that you have uncovered your inner strength you can walk with confidence that if push came to shove you will not go down so easily and even if you do, you are no longer the type to stay down. You can now demonstrate to your detractors that you are the character in the story who is defeated and never heard from again. You have inherited the archetypal power of the blooded and beaten hero who reemerges in the last round to knockout his foe. The protagonist who withstands the pain and shame of consecutive losses only to arise in victory when it counts the most. That type of strength is a warning to everyone who wants to capitalize on your downfall. It says, don’t mess with me because no matter how many times you beat me, you’ll never be rid of me. I don’t give up. This ends when you give up, so you might as well do so now.