Whose Shame Is This, Really?
Breaking the Spell of Projected Failure
There I was, lying on my healer’s table — heart heavy, energy tangled, ego on high alert.
Someone had accused me of doing something I *knew* I hadn’t done.
And yet… I still felt shame.
My mind whispered, “Well, maybe you did. Maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you created the problem.”
I’ve done enough inner work to know that when the ego’s mic gets turned up, there’s usually something deeper going on. Still, the shame sat like a rock in my gut.
But then my healer said something that cracked the whole thing open:
“What if this wasn’t yours? What if someone else couldn’t face their failure… and passed it forward?”
That’s when the truth hit me like lightning:
This wasn’t *my* shame.
It was her shame — projected onto me.
A survival strategy. A protective reflex. A failure re-routed.
The person who accused me hadn’t prepared their team. They hadn’t communicated clearly. They hadn’t done their own leadership work — and instead of owning that, they handed me the story that *I* had created the problem.
Just like that… I could feel the spell breaking.
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As I let this sink in, I felt myself being pulled back in time…
And there was my mother.
The same pattern.
When something in her life wasn’t working — her career, her relationships, her inner world — she would blame me.
“You’re too much. You’re not enough. You’re the reason I can’t…”
As a child, I didn’t know to question it. I just absorbed it.
*If she says it’s my fault, it must be true.*
I internalized her failures as my identity.
And I carried it — for years.
But not anymore.
That moment on the healer’s table gave me *so much more* than insight.
It gave me *liberation*.
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This isn’t just my story — it’s a collective pattern.
So many of us carry shame, fear, and guilt that were never ours to begin with.
We inherited them. We absorbed them. We confused projection with truth.
🪞 Exploration: Reclaiming What Was Never Yours
• Who told me I was the problem — and what was really going on for *them*?
• Where have I been holding shame for someone else’s failure, pain, or silence?
• How would it feel to return that shame to its source — with compassion, not blame?
• What’s true about me *now* that I can see clearly?
• Where in my body do I feel freedom emerging?
💌 This Is How We Break the Spell
Every time we see a projection for what it is…
Every time we trace shame to its *real* source…
Every time we reclaim our wholeness from someone else’s shadow…
We shatter a cycle.
We break an ancestral pattern.
We *lead*.
This is the work of the Inner CEO.
Not just managing others — but managing our *inner world* with clarity, love, and sovereignty.
You’re not the problem.
You never were.
You were just absorbing someone else’s unprocessed pain.
But now?
Now you see it.
And now… you’re free. 🔥