In the coaching session, a clear pattern emerges: the man accesses a state of deep self-welcoming — open posture, presence, tears of recognition — and then shame pulls him out. He looks down, closes, hedges. Joe names the pattern: “You know that place, but after you are in that place, somehow you have a learning that you need to feel shame after that place.”
This is a common complex of patterns where “you’re not allowed to feel good. You can perform, but you’re not allowed to be seen. You’re just not allowed to feel good.” Typically, this originates with a parent whose senses were overwhelmed by the child’s joy — who cut the tall poppy, who said “I don’t want you to get a big head” (which basically means “I don’t want you to feel good”).
The pendulation between welcoming and shame is natural and part of the process: “Oh no, I might get too big for my britches. Oh no, I might be too much for people I love who will reject me if I feel this good.” Joe emphasizes this oscillation is to be felt and invited, not resisted. The shame that arises after feeling good is itself another thing to welcome.
People often enter self-development thinking they need to become good enough to deserve feeling good. The actual journey is discovering they can allow themselves to feel good right now, with nothing needing to change. There’s no perfection needed — just welcoming.
Related Concepts
- Happiness feels dangerous to the vigilant
- Foreboding joy blocks gratitude
- Shame addiction keeps you stuck
- Shame interrupts openness and pulls you out of spaciousness
- Shame blocks you from feeling how good life actually is
- We recreate painful circumstances to finally welcome the avoided emotion
- If you can’t love the thing, love the resistance to the thing
- Fully falling in love with the avoided feeling is the quickest way to stop a negative pattern