Dear Tatjana:

Welcome back!

You wrote: “shame is awful cause it makes me want to die”- and I can relate. For shame to be effective in a person’s life, it needs to be experienced, when we do something wrong, in a very small quantity, like a very hot, strong spice that only a very small quantity of it is needed in a dish being prepared. Just a little bit. More than just a bit and it overwhelms a person.

Let’s look at what happened today: your friend witnessed you eating leftovers. First: was there any wrongdoing on your part? Did you deprive him of the food you ate, were there other plans for the food you ate?

Let’s say you deprived him of the food you ate, that it was planned that you and him have it for dinner but you already ate it, so that is a wrongdoing. How much shame does it require?

Just a little bit. Because again, shame is like a very hot spice, very strong, too much of it and it burns, overwhelms. So you allow just a bit of it in your heart, offer an apology, an amend: go shopping for an equivalent amount of food to what you ate for his dinner.

anita