Shame’s real name is Art.

I thought I was going to die alone in Germany.

I remember staring into my cup of tea after I had just collapsed on the shower floor. I had let the hot water run over my skinny body until it went cold. I stood shakily, gripping the glass encasing with white knuckles, wrapped myself in a towel, and went to the kitchen to pour a cup of tasteless tea.

The world started to go black again and I remember sinking to the floor, waiting. To black out or remain conscious, whatever the fates decided.

I regained vision, pulled myself up, poured the tea, and got under the covers, wet and shivering.

I spoke into the liquid contents, “One day someone will take care of you. But right now …”

I spent 2 weeks taking photos of myself and preparing for death.

I came to terms with death at 21 in that Frankfurt flat.

I had graduated college in Seattle at 21 and booked a one way ticket to Spain, no doubt attempting to outrun myself — my choices and parts of myself I was ashamed of but lacked the emotional awareness at the time to know. My mother’s warning rang in the back of my mind, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Years later, very much alive, I had a conversation with a friend.

Nestled near a wood stove fire in a snowy cabin by a frozen lake in Oregon, my friend asked me, “So Sophie, do you carry shame?”

I looked up at the ceiling and thought about it.

“I don’t think I have shame.” I said.

And at the time I believed it.

I had buried it so deeply under disassociation where I might have felt shame, I felt numbness.

My mom always said; “Healing is like an onion, you peel back one layer and there’s a deeper one waiting.” That’s the funny thing about healing.

To come out of a state of dissociation takes quite the opposite of what my baseline was — achievement, accomplishment, and burn out as a badge of honor.

Turns out presence is the antidote to disassociation which requires slowness, rest, and intentional action.

My body was telling me something in Germany I hadn’t listened to yet.

I moved to Maui at 24 knowing I needed to take a long hard look at the layers of my onion.

Maui delivered.

I worked on a horse ranch. Everyday I brushed, picked hooves, raked round pens,  shoveled poop, and breathed. It was a rhythmic meditation with the backdrop of the deep blue limitless Pacific Ocean.

The expansiveness of the environment gave me the cognizant freedom of knowing I wasn’t caged in by buildings while I allowed myself to come back into my body for the first time in decades.

Having now understood how heavily I had been disassociating, bringing myself into my body and actually enjoying being sober in my body, the next logical step was not one I was entirely prepared for.

Why hello, shame.

“Is there something wrong with me”

“Did I do something wrong”

“Did I do something wrong”

This was a new set of internal monologue I hadn’t heard before.

I pushed it away for awhile, redirecting my thoughts like I had done with the other mean monologue. But this one persisted. Every morning when I woke up, first thought on repeat.

“Did I do something wrong”

And so I asked it a question: why are you here?

A simple answer, really: To acknowledge my shame and embarrassment that kept me creatively blocked for GOD KNOWS HOW LONG.

Would have been nice to know.

But in all seriousness, there is no room for my shame baggage where I’m headed next. I don’t have time to coddle it like I did my inner child; it needs a creative expression, it needs light shed on it.

The most intresting thing is, the parts of myself I have shame for are actually my most creative and powerful parts!

They need to be claimed as my own and redirected to serve the higher purpose; being authentically myself.

Becuase shame requires an external entity to make you feel that way, shame comes from condemnation.

Condemnation is designed to keep you isolated, small, and afraid.

Hope comes from conviction.

To be convicted is to have light shed on something beautiful that had become twisted, recognize its original purpose and creative power, and move forward in the direction of ordered action.

So, as I ask my shame who sent her and why, with grace she begins to look more like conviction, and conviction looks like wisdom, and wisdom looks like creative freedom.

I don’t need to run from myself, I need to integrate myself.

My word for 2026 is embody.

Embodying means presence, presence means a deeper layer is allowed to be seen. Where condemnation shunned me, conviction saves me and I look forward to alchemizing for the highest good.