I’m always struggling with how to describe how the way I work works—especially that last post about living the question that was titled How to fix everything wrong with you. What does it mean to live the question?!

Well, this one amazing person I had the pleasure of working with shared this anecdote about how she lives the questions.

“So yesterday I was having a conversation with my husband, and I kept interrupting him. I tend to do that a lot, especially in conversations that I am very distressed or passionate about. He got very annoyed with me at one point and showed it clearly.

I noticed a terribly uncomfortable feeling and the urge to react. Either to defend myself or to flip the tables on him and get angry at him back. But I didn't give into that urge right away. Somehow I had been able to slow down my observation of what was happening inside of me, so I was able to have that space between the uncomfortable feeling and the urge to react. That space gave me the fortitude not to act on my urge. Instead I just observed the uncomfortable feeling and tried to notice what it was.

I recognized it as shame. I never tuned into shame on quite this level. I knew it is wrong for me to interrupt him so much, and the shame that came with it was so big that I have always felt the need to repress it or hurt the other person who is shaming me. Because its too unbearable.

So in that space of observation, I asked myself why it was so unbearable. And I realized it was because in my mind and psyche, doing something bad/wrong/stupid denies me the right to even exist. My body and mind think that I am only worthy of existing if I never do anything wrong. I then was able to gently tell myself that I can make mistakes, even ones that get other people upset, and still be worthy of existing. It was so incredible to be able to hold both possibilities side by side.

It was the notion that I cannot exist if I do something wrong that made the shame unbearable. When I recognize that I do not have to be perfect to exist, I can suddenly be okay with the shame. It isn't unbearable. It just is and I can handle it.”