I felt a lot of shame when I was too sick to work. I felt a lot of shame when I had to move my wife out of our little starter apartment back into her parent's house. I felt shame to need to see so many doctors and to need so many pills. Having been through all that, I can tell you now, in terms of dealing with chronic illness, shame is a waste.

If I had done something wrong and hurt someone else, maybe shame would be a good way to prod myself into making amends, but I didn't do anything wrong--I just got sick. Maybe shame would be useful if I was continuing to do something to make myself sicker, but I eat pretty well, take my medicine and try to stay active. Honestly, that's about all I can do. Feeling shame for no reason is a waste. Feeling shame takes time and energy away from improving my health, from spending time with my family, from being a contributing member of society. I've done my best to notice the shame when I felt it, then let it go. If all you've done to get sick is be alive, you are automatically worthy of love and compassion. Like me, you too can learn to let go of the shame.

We don't kill people just because they grow old and sick. Do we? Why should you or I feel shame because we are young and sick? To feel shame is to say, "I believe society should punish people like me, or at least let us rot." Why was I so hard on myself when, at the same time, I felt that seniors, the mentally ill,people who had been injured in an accident or anyone else with a chronic illness deserved quality care? For me, part of it was not having a diagnosis, but a big part of it was not trusting myself enough to accept the obvious fact that I was sick. Part of me must have felt I might really be a faker (after all, that's what so many experts had told me). My thinking was muddled. Maybe yours is too. After all, if everyone else with chronic illness is worthy of compassionate care, so are you!

Shame is an emotion that must be constantly tended. To feel shame, you must hold your feet to the fire, so to speak. As soon as you take your feet off the coals, your injuries start to cool. The scars of shame can last a lifetime, but the damage stops as soon as you stop inflicting it. Sure it would be nice if you and I had all the energy and health in the world. It would be nice if we were immensely rich and lived at the beach too. Why not? If we're dreaming, let's dream big. But we can cool the heat of shame with the cool waters of compassion and forgiveness.

I started by accepting that I had made the best choices I could have based on the information I had at the time. We can forgive ourselves for being human, for making mistakes, for getting sick. We wouldn't choose this life (probably), but we can embrace it and make it our own. When you are able to see your own life in a broader context of all humanity, you will able to let go of your shame. Then you can start to extend a feeling of compassion and forgiveness first to those you care about, then slowly to those who may have hurt you. Maybe the people who hurt you feel shame to. Maybe they should feel some shame. Maybe they just haven't lived through all that you and I have. Before we can forgive them, we need to forgive ourselves.

Cry if you have to, but you can at least start walking out of the center of the coals and toward the edge of the fire pit. When you get to the edge, step out of the flames-of-shame and onto the cool grass, wet with dew. Cross the grass and put your feet in the cool-waters-of-forgiveness. In other words, when you notice that you are feeling shame, go ahead and really feel it, say hello to the shame, embrace it with love, then let it go.