Shame is just a five letter word.

Anel Bester
Jul 24, 2017 · 7 min read

Today I’m feeling called to talk about another loaded topic.

Shame.

It all started last night on a group training call where I was taking participants through a process of redefining their relationship with money.

It appears that there is a shit ton of stress, anxiety and yes, even shame around money for a lot of people.

I should know — I was prime exhibit A not so long ago.

Which in turn took me back almost eighteen years (Seriously? I’m getting old!) to an incident where I was at the till with a month’s worth of groceries all rung up, packed and ready to go.

Never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought I would hear the words: “Your card has been declined”.

The earth dropped away.

I stood looking at the attendant in pure horror.

Heavily pregnant, I was unemployed for the first time in my life awaiting the birth of my first born.

Which means for the first time since the age of eighteen I was financially dependent on another person.

A person who I love with all my heart but who has a tendency to not pay as much attention to domestic matters as he does his career matters.

I could feel the blood rushing up into my face, lighting me up like a Christmas tree.

“There must be a mistake” I whispered. “Let me just quickly call my husband and sort this right out”.

I phoned.

Oops. He forgot to keep track and transfer the funds and it would take at least a day to clear.

Hot tears stung my eyes. I felt humiliated.

I apologised profusely to the till attendant, the packer, the guy standing behind me, the three people in the line behind him.

And then I ran out.

Into my car.

Back to my home.

For the first time in my life I felt poor. And God knows we were never what would be defined by society as wealthy.

In hindsight it’s rather ridiculous as we had the money, just not in the right card at the right time.

Regardless of the actual truth instead of the drama, it left a deep scar and for years after that I would be absolutely terrified every time I went to the till point. Praying vehemently to God NOT to let the card be declined.

It was.

On a couple of occasions more.

Okay so at times I can be a very slow fucking learner.

Instead of taking the lessons and always being on top of my money, I pushed my head deeper into the sand thinking that if I can just pretend to be an ostrich it would all work out fine. Except of course we never seem to realise that the ostrich leaves a really BIG VISIBLE ASS hanging out there for all to see.

I absolutely believe in my heart of hearts that everything happens for us, and everything is about learning so that we can go to our next level thrive.

Yet we can’t go to where we want to be until we have the courage to get real about where we are AND we get the learning!

My learning was that I had to start paying attention to my money.

I had to transform my relationship from viewing money as my mother-in-law to my lover.

Because when I felt that money was a mother-in-law out to humiliate me at every possible opportunity, I treated it like shit. I avoided it at any cost. I didn’t want to see it. And of course money had no choice but to respond in kind.

But now that I treat money as I do a lover, we have a relationship that will inspire poets to write sonnets for years to come.

Now here’s what I’m getting to: This incident is a powerful part of my story, my life story, my purpose story. Yet I’ve never shared it with anyone because somewhere deep down I still held some shame to it. I’ve attached a negative meaning to it about myself.

As if a declined credit card says anything about me as a person.

As if a declined credit card says anything about my love, my purpose, my spirituality, my relationships, my health — quite frankly anything that is truly important to me.

Instead I let the “shame” of a moment with a complete stranger who I never saw again and who didn’t give me a second thought dictate my behaviour for almost two decades to come.

Isn’t that just dumb-ass crazy?

More importantly, when I shared the story with the participants majority of them had had similar experiences which they had never healed and it was EXACTLY what they needed to hear to move forward.

They needed to hear my experience, my insights, my learning, my healing, my questioning, my solutions, my tactics for them to go next level.

Once again my life is in service of others.

I think you will agree with me that this whole SHAME-SHIT is just another egotistical illusion which only has power over us if we choose to let it.

Who even invented the word shame FFS? Who even decided to take those five letters and put them in that order and then give them that meaning?

My guess is some retarded fuck out to screw people over. And by the way, he’s looooong dead my friend.

Shame is just a word that we’ve loaded with emotion.

This is super news as emotion is an inside job.

Which means at any time you can choose to feel differently.

Now I’m also going to be really fucking real with you here — it took me shit tons of work on myself to get to this point. Years of coaching, personal development, getting my shit together and having a working accounting system.

And before you say you’re not ready to go there yet I want to tell you that you don’t have to slay the mighty dragons to get started.

After all we’re achievers and according the Enneagram our core emotion is SHAME!

Which also means it’s our biggest life lesson.

Sometimes life has a seriously wicked sense of humour.

Maybe all you have the courage for right now is to start having fun around the whole ‘shame’ or even ’embarrassment’ debacle. For me, riding my bike was just the absolute best place to stop giving a flying fuck about what people said and instead start having fun — especially when it could make others shake their heads either in laughter or in pure horror.

That’s where I started chasing ducks howling like a mad wolf.

It’s where I started choosing the muddiest path, got stuck and fell over to cross the finish line looking like a mud wrestler and smelling like a sewer.

It’s where I would make sand angels on a ‘serious’ stage race bringing tons of smiles to those in physical pain at the time giving them something else to think about.

Sport is always a great place to start. Mostly because everyone around you is more caught up in their shit than you but also athletes play at different rules than ‘normal’ people do.

A great place to give yourself permission to grow the fuck down and just have fun whilst looking like a complete ass.

And when feel comfortable doing the asinine thing in sport, you upgrade to the next level and start digging deeper.

Maybe you start using your ’embarrassing’ moments to stop defining you as a person and start using it to showcase your courage.

Let it become a part of your story that inspires others because way too many people are living in the dark because of this absolute bullshit called shame.

Let’s rip that word out of our dictionary along with ‘try’ and ‘average’ and ‘settle’ and ‘mediocre’.

Let’s replace them with words such as ‘learning’ and ‘strive for’ and ‘over-achievers’ and ‘desire’ and ‘epic’.

All change starts with one person and that person is YOU Darling.

YOU matter.

Your life story is powerful and needs to be told with pride and humility and from a space of serving others.

Why the fuck not?

Everyone learns.

Learning rarely takes place in comfort.

Well not the REAL learning anyway.

I’m not talking about book learning.

I’m talking about life learning.

And what can be more important than that?

What can possibly be more important than getting curious about all the events that the Universe conspires to gift us so we can learn and grow and thrive?

What can be more epic than looking back and saying “Aaaaaah that’s why the card was declined! Because I had to learn to become the business woman who runs an international empire even when I was unemployed and pregnant. Because I had to learn that shame is a smoke screen designed by a nameless fart that keeps people hiding in the shadow instead of stepping out into the light and letting the warmth of the sun warm them up. Well no fucking wonder the card was declined. Thank you thank you thank you Lord for the gentle lesson!”

Are you ready to choose life?

Are you ready to breathe in freely?

Are you ready to thrive?

Because you know it’s a choice right?

A choice you can make right now.

A choice to start getting real and looking under the bed because the monster is just a petrified little mouse.

What’s the alternative?

Death?

Well fuck you’re gonna die anyway Darling.

Why not choose to thrive a little instead?

With love always,

Anel.

PS: Are you ready to thrive? Are you ready to take back all your power and proudly step into the light and showcase your story to the world? Need a little nudge and support Darling? Who doesn’t? And the thing is you absolutely deserve the support to live the life of your dreams. Kick-start is thirty day of taking you from where you are to where you know you belong by dropping all the BS stories and embracing your truth, your real desires, your true goals. You, all of you. Unapologetically. If you’re ready to make this level of commitment in yourself, then check out all the details here and let’s play.

Anel Bester
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