Hi Sprteflower – I like that username – what led you chose that, and did you intentionally leave out the i – sprite  – a small being, human in form, playful and having magical powers? (I wonder if its not time to embrace a little of the sprite in only to see what ‘powers’ such play might revel?)

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality. – Seneca

Thanks for sharing your story.

Your post reminded me of something I read long ago

If you have a nagging feeling that you do no measure up to the person you imagine you ought to be, the generic label for what you feel i shame. We have shame when we persistently feel that we are not acceptable, maybe unworthy, and are less than the good person we are supposed to be. Shame is a vague undefined heaviness that presses on our spirit, dampens our gratitude for the goodness of life, and slackens the free flow of joy. Shame is a primal feeling, the kind that seeps into and discolors all our other feelings, primarily about ourselves but about almost everyone and everything else in our life as well. 

Shame can get us in touch with the most beautiful part of ourselves, a warning we that we are becoming a person we do not want to be, But shame is often an unhealthy feeling of un-worth that is distorted, exaggerated, and utterly out of touch with our reality. Most of us carry both kinds of shame – shame we deserve and shame we don’t deserve.  – L B Smedes

Reading through your post I suspect the shame your experienced is undeserved yet in holding on to this undeserved shame it is also a warning that it is this holding onto this undeserved shame that is leading you into being the  person you do not want to be.  The irony of being caught in a loop of being ashamed about being ashamed, trap I can relate to.

You mention – My path has been successful from the outside – suggesting that you have overcome the objective experiences of your past, a indication that you will continue to do so and to which you should give your self more credit. It seems it is the inner stories you are telling yourself that you can’t get past. In other words its possible that its language that is keeping you stuck in undeserved shame.

A meditation practice I like is creating space and stillness as I remind myself that I am not my thoughts, there are thoughts, I am not my memories, their are memories, I am not my emotions, thier are emotions, I am not my past, the past has past, I am not the words I use to tell my stories, there are words. The map is  not the territory, and words are not the things they can only point to, there is no requirement that I hold on the them.

<p lang=”en-US”>“You likely have parts of your own history you’d rather forget, same as I do. But when I actually wrote these things down, when I got up close and personal with them—yes, there was pain, and yes, there was hurt—by giving them a name, I stripped them of their power. And what I learned is that lies (undeserved shame) will always be worth fighting against. Because what you’re left fighting for is the truth, and that is the most freeing thing in the world.”
― Joanna Gaines, The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters</p>