Working through shame and resentment after messing up

Hello,

I am struggling to move out of a state of massive shame and resentment towards myself after messing up in my work. My models currently look like this:

Unintentional:
C: I fucked up.
T: I am an unprofessional fuck-up and deserve all bad things that happen to me, ever.
F: Shame & anger
A: look for excuses as to why this happened. Look for explanations as to why I cannot take care of myself and my work as a result. Beat myself up. Force myself to buckle down even there is no humanly possible way to meet the deadline and I will only do sloppy, overworked work. come up with (white) lies that may grant me an extended deadline with no dressing down. Vent to friends. Make it out as though it’s the most hilarious thing ever, doesn’t everyone disregard deadlines, lol? Try to nap it away. Find reasons why this means I will forever be unloveable.
R: not get any work done, or resolve the issue. Hate myself some more.

Intentional:
C: I fucked up.
T: I behaved unprofessional and fucked up.
F: ?
A: take responsibility for my mistake. Accept consequences.
R: ?

What I am struggling with is that even though I know what to do and will get it over and done with, the overriding emotion I would be feeling is Shame. I will accept responsibility, but at that moment the intentional model will be flipped on it’s head, and I am back at feeling shame for admitting to my mistake, for being 40 years old and still not having my shit together. Not to mention that my nervous system is all over the place.
Is there a way to rethink the intentional model to stay more firmly rooted in it? A way to practice sitting in shame, when my entire body is screaming to (quite literally) run away?
Thank you!

 

 

Answer:

Dearest Flow-er…you can’t have I fucked up in the circumstance line. No matter how much it feels like a fact to you and your shame brain, it simply isn’t true and it’s definitely not objective. What happened at work? Can you write it out exactly? For example: C: I have x tasks complete and the deadline was x date. or C: It is x date and x project is not turned in. or C: it is policy to inform the supervisor if a task is not complete by the deadline. Those are facts.

Then you get to think whatever you want about them. You can already see in your models here that the way you are thinking about yourself is creating a lot of pain and not getting you results that you like. Hold yourself with so much compassion. Love yourself right where you are. Even the part of you that wants to berate yourself until you are in a full, frozen, shame spiral.

What do you want to feel towards yourself? If every emotion was available and you knew in your bones you could create it, what do you want most right now? See what comes up as you think about this and bring back your questions and models for more coaching.