PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: This is Kehinde Egbanubi, and I am Renouncing Shame
Shame: a painful feeling of humiliation and regret. As in, an acute sense of foolishness. Brene Brown put it aptly when she defined it thus, “Shame: I am sorry I AM a mistake.”
Unlike guilt, shame is not apologizing for something it has done wrong. It apologizes for being, like me, until this moment.
Some years back, I got a job I failed miserably at. And I would berate myself for it.
I would stew in my boss’s feedback, personalizing the criticism so much so that a negative feedback about how the job was done meant I was too dumb to do anything useful.
I would tell myself over and over that I wasn’t good enough. Even more, I thought I didn’t deserve the opportunities I got. That was how I learnt shame in my career. I learnt that shame and finished it with a tall glass of shrink-juice, shrinking when I was presented with potentially life-defining opportunities.
Soon afterwards, I stopped showing up as a professional.
Professionals are confident, smart, and eloquent; all things I still struggle to be. So when people asked what I did, I either responded saying “student” or with some other vague answer that didn’t put too much value on my skill-set.
In my personal life, I shrunk too, having grown on a heavy diet of shame. It started with the name-calling until it became an attack on the person I was. I was not worth seeing, so I thought.
I did not deserve to be good-looking. Who’s looking at me anyway?
I did not deserve to be heard when intelligent conversations were being had, never mind that I was becoming acquainted with my genius.
So I owned shame, my experiences reinforcing my place in the shadows. And little by little, I started to disappear. I would make mistakes like everyone else. But rather than apologize or move on, I would personalize the resulting embarrassment. The shadows became comfortable, and I started choosing to hide.
I would hide from friends, hide from family, and hide from the world because I’ll be damned before I let the world rub my embarrassment in my face.
Shame became a comforting cloak; not one I loved to wear, but one that left me with the safety of the shadows.
In the shadows, there was no one to mock me, no one to gossip about me, no one to laugh at me when I failed. And it was safe, until I didn’t want to be safe anymore.
When asked what legacy I wanted to leave behind, I panicked once I realized that everything I represented was the opposite of the legacy I hoped to leave behind. I’d seen so many people do significant things that I knew I wanted my life to count for something beyond me. Importantly, I knew I did not want to be forgotten.
Soon after that, I started to unlearn shame.
In 2019, former Canadian pastor, Joshua Harris, announced that he was renouncing his faith in God. And in what I consider to be a bold move, he denounced his 1997 bestseller, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. In a bid to understand where he was in his personal life, I searched him out on Instagram, reading through his page which he had graciously left public.
The first post I saw was all the instruction I needed in my own life.
I had expected Joshua Harris to stay under the radar — at least until the excitement of his announcement had blown over. But right in the middle of it, he was putting up posts on Instagram, explaining the importance of that singular act as a defiance of shame. Josh was refusing to disappear.
And there I was carrying shame about for things I didn’t need to be ashamed of. There I was telling myself that I was a mistake for being alive, for being ignorant, loud, easily excitable, and intense. But that’s not who I want to continue to be.
So this is me renouncing shame. This is me telling the world — even if it’ll rather hear something else — that I am done with shame. Forever!
I am done cowering.
Done asking for permission.
Done apologizing for my ignorance. I am done trying to fit the perfect image of something.
Yes. I am loud, occasionally insecure, and inexplicably intense. But I am also thoughtful, opinionated, and driven. What’s more? I have made peace with my multitudes.
So this is me, complete in the complexity of my personality, kissing shame goodbye forever; embracing courage, embracing confidence, embracing the sun.
