STFU #06 — Naked Yoga — How Facing Shame gives you Courage

In 2009, at the age of 33, a smear test and biopsy revealed that Doria Gani had stage 3 cervical cancer. She went through surgery, followed by a combination of the two toughest treatments — chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which pushed her into early menopause. She was told she could never be able to have children.

As she felt weak after treatments, she decided to try Yoga and started enjoying it. She went to India to train to be a yoga teacher. But it was in 2015, when she went to Burning Man Festival, that she noticed someone posing naked under a huge sculpture — and decided to try it. She walked up to a guy with a camera and asked him to take pictures of her doing yoga poses naked — and felt entirely free of shame.

The feeling of stepping over her fear of shame, and being vulnerable not only demonstrated courage but ‘liberated’ her to deal with the toughest situations in her life.

Since then, Doria has been known globally to heal thousands of patients through her Naked Yoga and body positivity.

While it might sound rebellious, for those who are hyper about cultural rejection, Naked yoga is mentioned in ancient Greek texts and in 1,000-year-old sacred Hindu writings.

shame shame, puppy shame!

When we were kids, “Shame shame puppy shame” was a common banter, as we laughed about it, while embarrassing the other person. This feeling of shaming someone is so ingrained in us, that it has caused more fear in us of being “shamed” — any failure in our effort only makes us worry about being shouted back by the ‘judgy’ world around us, “shame shame, puppy shame!”

We fear being disconnected or being rejected by others.

A set of fantastic Ted talks by Brene Brown should help change your perspectives!

No one wants to talk about shame, and the less you talk about it, the more you have it. In your quest to avoid being shamed, you numb your emotions, but what you don’t realize is that while numbing the bad emotions, you also numb down the good emotions of joy, gratitude, and happiness!

While Shame and Being Vulnerable is not exactly the same, they are connected. Losing the fear of shame makes us vulnerable, but also gives us the courage to bring change and face our fears.

We hold our truths, sometimes from our own selves.

Like most of us have complexes about our bodies, entrepreneurs have complexes about their startups.

When I started True Elements, the first few years were much tougher. It was a combination of back-to-back failures with a few intermittent wins. These failures pushed me into a shell — where I was scared to admit failures, to admit that things weren’t going well — the fear of being judged as a failure made me avoid Alumni Meets or meeting old classmates. What if everyone shouted back, “Shame shame, puppy shame!”

There are moments when you just don’t want to talk about your startup — as you don’t even want empathy from others.

What I did not realize was that it is this very fear of shame, of feeling worthless, that made things worse — the more I avoided talking about it, the worse it got for me — and the stronger the shell became — so much so that it impacted my personal life as well!

And that’s when I learned what changed my thinking completely -

“What the world thinks of you is not your problem.”

The thing to understand about shame is, that it’s not guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” Guilt: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I’m sorry. I am a mistake.

What we need to build is to treat ourselves kindly — build the courage to be imperfect and to simply admit, “ I made a mistake. I failed “

What if you go out and face your fears? What if you go out and admit that ‘yes, it’s not going well, but I am trying’?

When I became more open to talking about failures, it helped me get more confident — failures still continued, but I became more open to embracing them!

When we face shame, the ones who win this game of shame are the ones who enter the arena, not with armor and bulletproof jackets, but with the courage to be vulnerable, courage to be naked — right there, facing their fears. Those are the gladiators we want to work with — not the winners or the losers, but those who dare!

When you let go of your fear of being shamed, fear of being judged or rejected, when you realize what the world thinks of you is NOT your problem, you feel liberated — all you have to do is to find a guy with a camera, take off your ‘inhibitions’ and ask him to click as you pose with a ‘shame-less’ courageous smile!

Stfu!

Naked Yoga, Brene Brown Ted — Power of Vulnerability, Listening to Shame

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.