The Shame Pimp
By: Javan
May 2, 2014

The Shame Pimp steals your time, hope, and self-respect. What makes you doubt your abilities? What steals your joy? Becoming disillusioned by shame creates over reactions and over reaching. Sometimes even hopelessness. Shame is another layer of emotional bindings. The trappings of which allow for years of cyclical thoughts and defense mechanisms. Shame is the Pimp around the corner you invite to steal your physical and emotional resources. Trapping your self-worth into an abyss.

Shame is silent, but deadly. Shame creates doubt, negative self-talk, and lack of trust in the universe. Buying into shame is like believing in the boogie man. The more you believe, the stronger shame becomes, lying dormant in the closet or under the bed. It’s always there, lurking….some days never coming out, but you know it’s there. Other days it reveals itself and steals your sense of security, your joy. Shame is not the same as healthy guilt. Shame is as helpful as unending worry. As helpful as anxiety.

Shame skews reality. A person’s perspective about who they are and who others are can change if shame is used to define life experiences. Both past and present shame can bind you for a lifetime of low self-esteem, feeling not good enough, becoming overwhelmed by a need to control, becoming addicted, etc. Truth is lost on shame. The Shame Pimp does not want the truth. The Shame Pimp survives as long as negative distortions are believed. Shame lives for the purpose to be shaming! To negate.

The Shame Pimp steals love and the ability to trust. The ability to trust is needed in order to love. If you cannot love yourself, you cannot love others. Rejection is the opposite of love. Love is acceptance, belonging, being known, being understood, on an unconditional basis. Shame does not allow for unconditional love. Shame says life is conditional.

Shame is doubt. Shame does not believe in good intentions. Shame is projection of your doubt onto others. Shame is controlling and over reaching so others are directed away from the shame in you. Shame is the belief, “I am not good enough or worthy just as I am today.” Shame is the lie that feels false. Shame is not being the real McCoy. Shame does not trust.

What does your internal critical voice say about you? What do you hear? If you listen, you will understand how being motivated by shame has allowed you to see only a small part of life. Not knowing your worth, in its entirety, leaves you blind to larger parts of life. The Shame Pimp can steal a life you don’t even know exists.

If you grew up being criticized, shamed, left alone, abandoned, or wounded, the shame pimp has been visiting. May you grow from your past, stop buying into the shame, and awaken to the life that has been all around you all this time! Be the person you intended to be or were meant to be before shame. Redefine yourself outside of shame.