Internalized capitalism and functions of guilt and shame

How do we show up as embodied individuals to the causes we care about?

In the month of June I’ve been deep in self-study preparing for the first cohort launch of the re[creation] room. I’m feeling so grateful for the people who have found their way to this space with curiosity and a willingness to explore a variety of questions that are arising for us as collective in this rapidly changing world.

What is the function of true community at a time where we are witnessing the collapse of systems?

How must the way we operate in the world change so that our wellbeing is not coming at a cost to others?

These are just some of the questions we’re asking…

One session into the program and we are deep in inquiry, but I have no doubt specified solutions will come from these conversations to uniquely serve the communities we are a part of.

And in the process, I hope this weekly online space grows into something that feels equal parts sacred and fluid. A place in the metaphysical for us to touch base and come back to our collective why.

Want to be part of the next re[creation] room cohort?

Fill out the interest form to learn more about the program and book a discovery call with me to see if it’s a good fit!

Not ready to be part of a group coaching space? Consider becoming part of the re[creation] room membership! You can learn more here and join us in the chat.

A book I have been raving about on social media is Andrea L. Richie’s book, Practicing New Worlds. This book is both an abolition field guide and a toolkit for decolonial practice that encourages the reader to create change on the individual level and work their way outward.

A concept from her her book that most stuck with me is the idea of the fractal principle. This being the idea that larger systems are built by simple rules happening on a repeating scale, and that we as humans are a part of that.

Ferns display “self-similarity” on any scale. This is a prime example of the fractal principle. Image Credit: fractalfoundation.org

I’m not going to lie, I read this and I cringed internally at the idea that I want to imagine a world post-capitalism, and yet, I am still grappling with it internally. Constantly chastising myself for not being productive enough, not working enough, working too much, feeling guilty for resting, and shame for my varying degrees of privilege that allow me access to wellbeing where it is denied to others.

As Richie says in her book, “How you talk to yourself is a reflection of how society is structured and how you are structuring society.” And this quote got me thinking about the functions of guilt and shame.

I will never forget sitting in my 300 person lecture in undergrad in a class called Nations and Nationalities. I remember my professor posing this very question. “Who does guilt and shame serve?,” he asked as his silvery hair glinted under the florescent lights of the lecture hall.

I remember him giving us a variety of cultural examples of how guilt and shame were used as functions of control to keep people from questioning the roles they had been given, the abuse they were being subjected to, even the power they had been chosen to wield.

When I consider guilt as the idea that something I’ve done is deemed as wrong, and shame as the idea that something about who or what I am is inherently wrong, when applied to the larger scope of systems, I come to the conclusion that shame is bestowed up on us by power structures that create the pipeline for guilty action to continue.

In other words, if I believe something about me is inherently wrong then I will move through the world with guilt. If I see my identity as inextricable from shame, then guilt becomes the roadblock for my ability to think and do differently.

And while these ideas can be explored at varying degrees of identity privilege and marginalization, I will use myself as a personal example:

As a Black woman, society has taught me to feel shame for what I am. Has taught me that what I am is lesser and wrong. This has bestowed upon me a feeling of shame that for many years kept me at war with myself.

Kept me from questioning the overarching power structures that needed to profit off of my deference to whiteness because of my ‘inherent wrongness,’ instead of dismantling systems that would uphold a dominant racial group in the first place.

When it comes to guilt, at the same time I am a Black woman, I am also American with a level of accessibility, no matter how hard fought, that has not been afforded to my Afro-descendant counterparts in the Global South.

I explore my guilt a lot these days as I have found a vibrant cultural community in Costa Rica that I am attempting to be part of. One that I see comes with so much beauty, but also so much hardship. Economically, geographically, ethnically…

I feel guilty for the comfort my American money affords me here, but I am determined to not let it embarrass me into shame and secrecy. Because not only do I have the opportunity to live a good life here, but I have a chance to “wipe my feet at the door,” as one of my friends and amazing facilitators Jameelah says. To show up in service to the space that was here long before I arrived.

In the re[creation] room we did a self-talk audit that encouraged us to unpack the internalized systems of oppression we perpetuate within ourselves and how, through confronting the inner voice that keeps us cycling through unconscious conditioning, we can begin to build bridges for other ways of being in the world that make equity and regenerative future-building possible.

If you want to engage with that exercise you can join us over in the re[creation] room membership.