I’d like to introduce everyone to this adorable a**hole who has been haunting me for as far back as I can remember. This is my demon of Shame.

Through therapy, meditation, and time, I’ve learned that shame is at the root of most of my suffering. I’ve been trying since last year to make art to GET SHAME OUTSIDE OF ME SO I CAN LOOK AT HIM FACE-TO-FACE.

I struggled finding him through sketching, thumbnailing, and photobashing. I now realize that those weren’t working well for me because they were seeking forms from “the outside in,” i.e., starting from pre-set forms in the hopes of landing on something that “looks like” shame.

Then I took an in-person class with the amazing @spiderzero (https://www.bigbluetree.com/). A couple weeks later, I sat down with Simon’s concepting workflow and Monster Clay, and the demon emerged—to use Simon’s wording—from “the inside out.”

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In my childhood, this demon arose for me in the shadowy gap between my false belief that I am not inherently worthy of love or belonging, against the real, very-human need to be loved and to belong. In a sense he arose to protect me, because without him my child’s mind could not have coped with the existential ramifications of such a dissonance.

The demon’s twisted wisdom to me has been: “You are uniquely unbelonging and undeserving of love. At best, you should hope to earn it—constantly, vigorously, and desperately. I can help.”

And what’s messed up is that he did! A lot of the resources I have, including my ability to learn quickly, my career, my social acumen, came from lessons he taught me. But those lessons came at great cost, even unto death. A Faustian pact.

So, now that I have conjured this creature to visible form in front of me, I have to tell him this:

I love you. I thank you. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me up to this point.

But I’m moving forward.

I know you’ll tag along. That’s fine.

If you’re hungry, please know that we never needed to look elsewhere to be fed. Within me has always been an infinite source of love, resilience, and power.

Drink from my well! Now more than ever, little shame demon,

you need it more than me. 🖤