Shame
Unsent Letter to the Person I Am Avoiding Due to Shame
Client is avoiding contact with someone specific, and the avoidance has become its own source of shame, keeping the client isolated and stuck.
Sometimes the person we are avoiding is not someone we have harmed, but someone we have been ashamed to be around. A friend from a difficult time. A family member we have disappointed. Someone who saw us at our worst. The avoidance keeps the shame alive and prevents the relationship from shifting.
Writing an unsent letter breaks the shame by speaking it directly.
Unsent Letter to the Person I Am Avoiding Due to Shame
Write a letter to the person you have been avoiding. Do not send it.
Start: “I have been avoiding you because…”
Write what you have been ashamed to let them know:
What I was going through that I could not tell you. What I did that I know hurt you. What I want you to know about me now. What I wish had been different. What I see now that I could not see then.
Then write: “I do not know if I can face you yet, but you deserve to know what has been happening with me. You deserve honesty instead of silence.”
Do not ask for forgiveness. You are not apologizing your way back. You are telling the truth.
Read the letter aloud. Listen to your own words. Notice what shifts in your body when you speak them.
Then decide: do I want to send this, or is writing it enough?
If you send it, you are choosing vulnerability over protection. Your person might respond, or they might not. But the silence ends, and you stop living in avoidance.
If you do not send it, you have still broken the shame by speaking it. You have still told the truth, even if only to yourself.
One week after writing this, decide. There is no wrong choice. The work is that you named the shame instead of letting it live in silence.
Generated with Rapport7 — rapport7.com