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Today, I’m diving into a big realization I had about shame and how it sneaks into our lives. I’ve been carrying this emotion for nearly 30 years without even knowing it, and it’s been holding me back from asking for help. It turns out that shame has been a huge part of my struggle, especially since my accident when I was 18. I’ve always felt guilty about needing assistance, but now I see that it’s time to face this head-on. By recognizing this feeling, I feel a newfound freedom that’s been missing for way too long. Join me as I unpack this journey and explore how facing our emotions can truly set us free.

I'm sure you've heard of shadows, those emotions and influences that have a large bearing on our lives yet we cannot see them. Nearly 30 years, I had no idea that this one emotion was holding me back. As I share my story of finding freedom, what about you? What emotion is holding you back?

I'm Steven Webb, your host, and sometimes we are far too close and when an ex says something that bites. Take notice.

The heart of today's discussion revolves around a profound personal revelation that has taken years to uncover. Our speaker reflects on a conversation that revealed an unrecognized emotion: shame. This emotion, stemming from a life-changing accident at 18, has woven itself into the fabric of daily life, impacting decisions and feelings of independence. The speaker grapples with the complexities of needing help while feeling a deep-seated guilt for requiring assistance. This episode dives into the intricacies of human emotions and the importance of acknowledging them to achieve freedom and wholeness. Through personal anecdotes, we explore how shame can act as a silent barrier, subtly pulling us back from reaching out for support. The speaker's journey towards understanding this emotion offers listeners a chance to reflect on their own barriers and the potential for growth that comes from confronting them head-on.

Takeaways:

• The realization of shame in my life has brought a new sense of freedom.
• Understanding that I can include all my feelings, both good and bad, is key.
• Asking for help has been a significant struggle for me throughout my life.
• It's crucial to shine a light on our emotions to free ourselves from their hold.
• Recognizing that shame has limited me has opened doors to a more fulfilling life.
• Listening to others about what might be holding me back can lead to profound insights.

I want to share something with you that I come to the realization the other day and it's feel like.

I feel like it's given me more freedom than anything that I've ever realized.

It's made me feel more whole than I've ever realized.

And one of the things that I talk about becoming whole is including feelings, including as much as you possibly can in your life.

It's not getting rid of the feelings you don't like and only choosing the feelings that you do like.

I never realized I had this feeling.

I never realized I had this emotion.

I never realized how much this one particular emotion controls me completely.

And it has done for nearly 30 years.

And for someone to point out this to me, although they didn't point to it precisely, but what they pointed to enabled me to find it myself and see it.

And I was in a conversation with an ex and they said, do you mind if I say this to you?

An observation that I've noticed with you.

And they said to me, I think you're quite bitter about your accident.

And although I don't recognize the word bitter, I really don't.

It annoyed me.

I.

And when something annoys me, when something really grinds you, when someone says something and you're bothered by it, they're onto something.

And you may not like it, but they're onto something.

And I sat there and I thought about it and I let them talk and I listened.

And before I tell you about this emotion that I've realized now that quite possibly has controlled most of my life and held me back from having any kind of freedom and it explains so much in my life, so many of my decisions, so many of my fears, and I had no idea it even existed over the past few weeks or.

One thing I've always found difficult in my life is to ask for help.

I just did not know how to ask for help or I knew how to ask.

I didn't like doing it.

I wanted to be independent.

You know, I'm paralysed just below the neck.

My arms have limited movement and my hands are completely paralyzed.

I broke my neck when I was 18.

For the people that are not regular listeners to my podcast or my YouTube videos, I dived into a swim pool and I was instantly severely paralyzed.

I have 24 hour care.

I have all kinds of things having that I have to have done for me.

I'd have my food cut up.

I have the gift that I can eat it myself.

Not I need someone to eat it for me, but.

But I can put it on a fork and put it in my mouth.

So that's quite a gift.

And I. I need to be showered, and I cannot have go toilet in private.

So everything, nearly 90% of my life, I have to ask someone for help with.

And I don't like doing it.

I really don't like doing it.

And I feel guilty doing it a lot of the time.

I feel guilty at reaching out and asking.

And the guilt was quite easy to see.

You know, I kind of seen that for a long time.

But then my wheelchairs broke and I had to reach out with a GoFundMe page.

And I was trying to.

Everything in my life I tried to give back.

If someone gives me something, I'm like, what can I do for you?

And I'm always trying to work out what I can give to people, how I can help you and others before I ask for anything in return.

And that's always been my default thing.

I've always felt in debt with everything anybody's ever done for me.

And people enjoy helping me.

People enjoy doing things for me.

So I found it really quite interesting when someone said to me.

When an ex looked up and said to me, I think you're bitter.

I took a deep breath, and that really, like, it pissed me off.

I was agitated.

I was sitting there and I was like, you're so freaking wrong here.

But I thought about it and I listened, and I let it sit with me.

And I'm not bitter.

She was pointing in the right direction, but she was pointing to the wrong thing.

It's shame.

It's shame.

Shame is an emotion I never thought I had, never thought it was part of my life.

And I'll tell you why I know it's shame.

I dived into the swimming pool that night.

I made the choice on the wall to dive in.

Whether I was showing off, I didn't know I was going to end up paralyzed.

But I dived in and I broke my neck.

I ended up paralyzed.

I created this life, this struggle.

And because of my foolish action at the age of 18, now I need to ask people for help.

All my life, and I feel ashamed asking for help.

I feel ashamed because they didn't do it to me.

I've got no one to blame.

I've got no one to write.

Well, it's your fault.

You're the one that can pay.

You're the one that can pay for my new wheelchair and things like that.

You're the one that needs to help me out because you did this to me.

I don't have that luxury.

I don't have that I could blame people, but it would be unjust and it would not be right.

So there it is.

For nearly 30 years.

For nearly 30 years.

Shame is the thing that, or certainly a large part of the shadow I couldn't see this monster, this whatever you want to call it, this.

There's something that was pulling on me, stopping me, pulling me back, asking for help.

And people come to me and they say, well, you're courageous, you're amazing, you do so well.

You're such an inspiration.

And in the back of my mind, although I'd never thought about it in this way, in the back of my mind I thought, well, if I chose that night to dive in, then perhaps you're right.

But I didn't know I was going to have the challenge of my life.

The moment I dived into that pool.

I didn't know I was going to paralyze myself.

I didn't know it was dangerous.

I did it many times.

I did it the night before.

It was the deep end.

There was nothing extraordinary that night that made me think that I was going to change my life in a moment, forever.

That night I had the moment I hit the bottom of the pool.

I was in the biggest fight of my life.

And every single day that's affected me, I would never walk.

The interesting thing is.

Well, you may find it interesting, I don't know, but when you damage your spinal cord, you either damage it completely or incomplete.

And incomplete means some information may still get through.

I damaged my spinal cord.

Complete.

The bone went through the spinal cord, C5.

Now that's it.

My brain's never going to communicate my body again.

And because of that, I have to rely on people's help.

And I want to be independent.

I want to do everything myself.

And I'm stubborn.

I'm stubborn as hell.

And now I realize where that stubbornness come from.

It doesn't come from grit and persistence and some kind of heroic courage.

It comes from a place of shame.

And shame because I was the one that broke my neck.

And I'm the one that has to rely on other people.

So other people have to help me in life.

But that's okay, because here's the thing.

They say the truth will first piss you off and then it'll free you.

And since I found that out, I spoke to Doshin.

You know, a Roshi that has helped me in so many ways, also triggers and pisses me off in so many ways.

But he Helped me see things in different ways.

And I spoke to him about this the other night, and he made me say, well, it's not the courage of you diving in the pool.

It's what you've done with it that counts.

That's why people admire you.

That's why people admire.

It's your actions that you do with whatever happened to you.

It's the way you respond.

And isn't that life?

Life is about the way you respond, not what you actually do.

So I've allowed the action I did.

I allow that mistake of a teenager that could happen to any teenagers, a mistake of one night.

I've allowed it to hold me back.

I come across other disabled people and I avoid them.

Not because I've clearly got a thing about disabled people, but because I put myself here, they probably didn't.

And that shame that I created this in my life has had such a lasting impact on me.

But realizing that it's just baby, so feel so much more freer since then.

It's like, wow.

Wow.

That's what it is.

It's like having a pain in your side and suddenly finding out what's causing it.

And now you can work on fixing it.

You know, I don't know if that's the best analogy, but in order to work on anything, in order to grow anything up, in order to bring something to a place where you could do something with it, you have to bring it into awareness.

And I had no idea if anybody said to me, do you know what?

I reckon you suffer from shame.

I've read two books of Brenny Brown about shame.

She is the shame master, you know, she's the Zen shame master.

And when I read those books, I could see shame in other people, but I'd never seen it myself.

Never thought so it's like.

And I love my life, don't get me wrong.

You know, I've just recorded a podcast of how much I love my life, which I'm going to put this podcast out first, and there's a reason for.

I'm going to do it that way around.

Yeah.

So much of my life is pulled down by this shame.

Shame is one of the lowest emotions, but it's one of the most subtle, unseen, unfelt.

But it's one that affects so much of your life.

It's so subtle, or certainly was in my case.

It almost disguised itself as guilt.

I could see that, but I denied that, just brushed that aside because it wasn't really that.

It's really raining outside.

I hope you can still Hear me.

Yeah, it's just, oh, I feel so free.

I feel free of just talking about it.

So thank you for listening to this podcast, you know, but look at what's holding you back in life, you know, a shadow to me or something in this way to me is like, at the moment they reckon There's a 10th planet and it's huge, but no light shines from it, so they cannot see it, but they know it's there because they can see the pull on the other planets.

So they can see the effect of it then.

The effect of shame in my life has been not reaching out, not looking up and going, hey, can you help me with a wheelchair?

Can you help me with this?

And every time I ask for help, I really battle with it and I feel my voice break when I do it.

I feel my voice like hesitant.

Can you do that for me, please?

Can you do.

Is it possible you could do that?

It's almost like I haven't got the.

I haven't got.

I don't feel like I've got the right to ask.

And I've reached out now and I've asked my wheelchair and so many of you have donated £6,500 right now I've got £900 myself, I've got 3,000 left to go.

And the feeling is just amazing for people to reach out and help me.

This happened a couple of times before where a group reached out to me and helped me with an air conditioner and other people individually have helped out, said, hey, is there anything I can do to help you?

And I've been like, no, no, no, no.

And even when I asked for the money for this wheelchair, this custom built wheelchair, that's going to just bring back my independence.

That's just so incredibly amazing.

But even when I ask for that, I almost want to give the money back.

There was a couple that put a thousand pound in the first couple of days and I was like, wow, can I just give you the money back?

I. I wasn't sure I could live with the guilt of having it.

And I now know it wasn't guilt, it was the shame that I created by accident.

Of course these people want to help me and I'm not going to get the money back.

So if you're thinking you're going to get your money back, you're not.

I'm going to get my wheelchair.

I'll put a link to the GoFundMe.

Because if I do earn enough money, earn enough money, let's see again.

Earning, earning.

If you do donate enough money, I'll then above the wheelchair.

I'll then get my book published.

Gift of no choice.

And the book's now the right time.

Because recognizing this and going back to the planet analogy, this planet is pulling on the other planets and they can see the effect, but they cannot see the planet.

Here's the thing, we gotta shine a light on our emotions.

Not to disclude them, not to push them away.

Shine a light on them, see them, expose them for what they are and then they'll free us.

Because this has freed me.

Just, you know, just recognizing that it should.

Shame that has been holding me back.

If this podcast does resonate with you, please share it with your friends.

And really, I want to leave you with one thought.

Just have ask somebody else what they think is holding you back.

Ask them for an honest review of how they see you.

And shut up and listen.

Because what they might have to say might just free you.

It really might just free you.

I'm Stephen Webb, and this is Stillness in the Storms and Hit the subscribe if you're watching on YouTube and leave a review or head over to stephenweb.com become a patron.

That would be amazing and incredible and all love you guys.

Take care.