09/18/2026
Shame is one of the heaviest emotions we carry, especially when it was placed upon us by our families, our culture, or generations before us.
Shame can settle into the root chakra as fear and insecurity. It can live in the sacral chakra as guilt, in the solar plexus as unworthiness, in the heart as isolation, and in the throat as all the truths we were taught not to speak.
These days spent here with my brother have brought me face-to-face with the shame surrounding mental illness, the silence, judgment, misunderstanding, and expectations that have followed my family for years.
I have felt the old wounds rising within me, but I am learning that I do not have to absorb the energy around me or carry the shame that others try to place upon us.
I stay grounded in my own energy. I place my hands over my solar plexus and offer myself Reiki, not to erase the past or pretend that difficult things did not happen, but to gently release the years of shame, pressure, and expectations I have carried in my body.
There can also be shame surrounding inherited trauma, mental illness, and inherited health conditions, as if our struggles are personal failures instead of part of a much larger human and generational story. We did not choose what was passed down to us, nor are we responsible for the wounds we inherited. However, we can choose how we care for ourselves and what we carry forward.
Healing does not always mean changing what cannot be changed. Sometimes it means accepting reality without abandoning ourselves.
Healing means leaving the past where it belongs, offering compassion to the parts of us that survived, and refusing to continue carrying shame that was never ours.
Mental illness is not a moral failure. Inherited trauma is not a character flaw. Asking for help is not a weakness.
We are still worthy, human, and we are allowed to release the expectations of others and return, gently, to our own center.
