by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The World is Designed to Feed On Your Shame: Here’s What to Do About It
Something weird can happen when a human being loses touch with who they are in their REALNESS:
They don’t just feel a bit ‘off’ – they literally start to be consumed by a kind of inner vacuum and find themselves in an unreal space where life is still happening but it no longer feels anchored to anything true or real.
In this state, decisions become reactive, desire becomes compulsive, attention gets sticky, and there’s the constant sense that something is ‘wrong’ – not necessarily with what you’re doing, but with you fundamentally as a human being.
In the language of REALNESS, this is the Void – a sense of being empty that makes you hungry for ‘more’:
It demands filling, pulls you outward from your own centre, creates unnecessary friction, and drives you by the core distortion of all core distortions: shame.
When we have this kind of shame and feel the Void within ourselves then we’ll try all kinds of (unreal) ways to replace the truth with something that we think can serve as a substitute:
This can literally be anything but it will eventually rule our lives with the energy of compulsivity and desperation and it causes us to force life (to keep the compulsions satisfied) and to stop flowing and growing in a real way.
Much of what I write about on this site is about returning to REALNESS so we can overcome this shame and leave the Void for our real lives but – if you stop and look around – you’ll see that there are actually so many forces in the world that actually want you to stay in this shame-driven state and to remain disconnected from yourself.
This article is going to explore how this happened, why ‘they’ want you to feel shame-driven instead of real, and what you can start doing about it to free yourself.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
They Feed On Your Shame: What We'll Cover in This Article
- The World is Designed to Feed On Your Shame: Here’s What to Do About It
- What We Actually Mean by Shame
- The Void and the Search for Substitutes
- How Shame Quietly Runs the System
- Systems that Feed on Your Shame
- The Only REAL Release of Tension
- Practical Ways to Step Out of the Shame Loop
- The Final Word: They Feed On Your Shame
What We Actually Mean by Shame
Before going further, we need to define this properly because “shame” is often misunderstood as just being embarrassment or social awkwardness or something like that.
In the way we’re using it here, shame has two main layers:
- At its most fundamental level, shame is a disconnection from truth – in other words, it’s the feeling of not being in direct contact with what is real in and around you in the present moment.
- At a more practical psychological level, shame is the internalised belief that you are not enough as you are.
When you’ve picked up this kind of shame then something very specific happens which is that you can’t simply be with yourself because actual presence becomes uncomfortable and so instead of acceptance, you move into judgement and instead of being, you start performing.
This kind of performance always creates more disconnection in the form of disconnection from yourself, disconnection from reality, and disconnection from truth.
That disconnection is the Void.
The Void and the Search for Substitutes
When we pick up this kind of shame then we end up becoming fragmented within ourselves instead of whole (or, at least, we start to think that we’re fragmented because of emotional and mental distortions).
Once somebody is living in this kind of fragmented state then they don’t usually realise it consciously – it just feels like “life needs sorting out” or “something is missing” (and it is: a connection to your realness).
When we think we have to sort things out or find whatever it is that is missing then the mind does what minds do and starts searching because if truth is no longer felt internally, then something else has to take its place externally.
This is when we start reaching for substitutes to help us feel like we’re getting close to overcoming the Void (when only the truth can help us to do this).
Here are some of the most common ‘substitutes’ for the truth that many of us end up chasing:
- Money.
- Sex.
- Power.
- Status.
- Relationships.
- Food.
- Substances (drugs and alcohol etc).
- Achievement.
- Validation.
- Control.
- Comfort.
- Spirituality.
- [Literally anything else]
None of these things are inherently ‘wrong’ – in fact, they’re all natural parts of human life that can be very ‘good’ things indeed (the problem is when we treat these ‘good’ things as the ULTIMATE things – forgetting that the only ‘ultimate’ is our relationship with life/truth itself).
This ‘good’ versus ‘ultimate distortion happens when we no longer experience these ‘things’ as expressions of life but instead allow them to become replacements for truth itself (which is impossible).
When this happens then these ‘substitutes’ stop being something that we can simply enjoy and start to be something that we desperately NEED instead:
This just causes us to go deeper into the Void because anything that is needed in this way becomes compulsive and so we stop relating to life and start trying to fix ourselves through life.
When you’re acting from compulsion like this in a misguided attempt to outrun your own shame then life becomes something you force rather than something you flow with.
It just gets worse and worse and more and more unreal.
How Shame Quietly Runs the System
At the centre of all of this is the simple misunderstanding that the Void can be filled from the outside.
Spoiler: It can’t!
The Void is NOT an external problem – it’s a misalignment of perception and a disconnection from truth and so – because of this – no external object can resolve it permanently.
They can distract you from it, numb you to it, and maybe even temporarily soothe it but they can never dissolve it and so attempting to overcome the Void with some ‘external’ thing just causes you to get lost in a cycle:
- Feel the Void (disconnection).
- Seek some kind of substitute (compulsion).
- Feel a temporary release from the tension of being in the Void in the first place.
- The tension returns.
- Your urges are even stronger next time round as the return to the Void feels even worse.
This loop actually underpins much modern compulsivity and it’s where things get interesting and also potentially a little uncomfortable because once a human being is in this loop, they become highly influenceable – not because they’re weak but because they are already searching and already open to anything that promises release.
Many people in the world want to keep you in this loop for this exact reason.
The Power and Potency of Tension and Release
To understand how this is used against you by the the world, you need to understand one simple dynamic:
Tension always wants Release.
When you’re living in a shame-driven state – i.e. disconnected from the truth – then there’s always internal tension present within you that operates beneath the surface of the things that you do in your life.
It’s the tension of:
- Not feeling enough.
- Not being fully present.
- Maintaining an unreal image of self as an extension of the Void.
- Constantly resisting your own emotions and actually feeling your feelings.
- Holding back from truth even the truth never goes anywhere and keeps showing up to be faced.
When this kind of inner tension is present in your relationship with yourself and life, then the nervous system naturally seeks relief and a discharge of the energy you’re carrying inside yourself.
This is where things get ‘weird’ (to say the least) because relief can be suggested – not created but suggested in the sense that something can be pointed out to you and you can be told something like “This is gonna help you feel better“.
In other words, when people know you’re carrying inner tension – and in some cases actively work to keep this tension within you – then they can offer solutions to you for their own benefit and not yours.
Systems that Feed on Your Shame
Many systems in modern life are structured in ways that interact with shame-based tension for the simple reason that it’s effective for them to do so.
Here are some of the most common examples:
- -Advertisers playing on your insecurity (shame) to try and convince you that you’re actually not good enough unless you attempt to fill the Void with their products.
-Governments making you believe that you can’t trust yourself and that you should trust the standard narratives and agendas if you want to feel ‘safe’ in yourself and the world.
-Modern entertainment like movies and music which offer you a distraction or escape from reality instead of asking you to actually face it (so you can return to truth and ‘heal’).
-Self-help gurus making you feel like you need to heal completely or perfectly and that you’re only worthy or good enough if you take action all the time (without cultivating Awareness and Acceptance first and foremost) .
-The beauty industry which is designed to make women feel like they have to look young their whole lives or the fitness industry which makes men and women feel they have to look a certain way to be valuable
-Productivity apps etc. that make you feel you have to squeeze every single second to the max so you can prove yourself and be ‘valuable ‘.
-Social media which is literally designed to keep poking your shame so you keep browsing.
-Modern political grifters who make you identify with your ego and some superficial thing about yourself (skin colour or whatever) instead of your realness. - -Etc.etc. etc.
None of this requires a conspiracy to see the validity behind it – in most cases, it just emerges naturally from systems optimising for attention, engagement, sales, or control.
Whether there’s a ‘conspiracy’ or not the end result is always the same, though:
It keeps people oriented outward searching for release of tension, rather than inward, returning to truth.
The Deeper Distortion: Identity Replacement
The real issue isn’t any single system but simply what happens inside the individual when shame is present:
When shame is internalised, identity becomes unstable and – when identity is unstable – people will often attach themselves to anything that provides a temporary sense of stability.
This is how those ‘substitutes’ for the truth become “life strategies” that we think will eventually ‘save’ us (from that feeling of not being enough as we are):
- “If I have money, I’ll be okay”.
- “If I look a certain way, I’ll be okay”.
- “If I’m desired, I’ll be okay”.
- “If I’m successful, I’ll be okay”.
- “If I’m ‘right’ all the time, I’ll be okay”.
(When the truth is that you’re actually already okay when you step away from the distortions of the Void).
All of these “life strategies” are just attempts to stabilise the Void through external anchors but the problem is that none of them are stable enough to hold the weight of inner disconnection and so the cycle continues.
The Only REAL Release of Tension
Here is the key point that underscores everything we’re talking about here:
The only thing that actually dissolves shame-based tension is truth.
Not substitutes, not distraction, not self-improvement strategies designed to outrun the feeling but the actual TRUTH.
In this context, truth isn’t just an idea, a belief system, or even a moral position – it’s just direct contact with reality as it is – internally and externally – without emotional and mental distortion.
When this contact occurs shame is undone because you don’t need to escape yourself anymore – instead, you can just be whatever it is that you are and will KNOW that it’s enough.
REALNESS & The Path Back to Wholeness
This is where REALNESS comes in because REALNESS is the process of returning from fragmentation to wholeness, from performance to presence, and from shame to truth.
It works through three key movements (which I use when designing coaching containers with and for my clients):
Awareness (Deconstruct Ego): Seeing the patterns clearly and noticing where you’re performing, avoiding, or compensating because of a disconnection from yourself and life so you can give unconscious behaviour conscious recognition.
Acceptance (Integrate Shadow): Allowing whatever is here right now to simply be without judgement (the opposite of acceptance) instead of turning experience into a problem that needs ‘fixing’ before you can be worthy of existing.
Action (Trust Yourself and Life): Learning to act from presence rather than compulsion so you can move with life instead of against it whilst seeing that clarity emerges through engagement with reality, not avoidance of it.
This is not a linear “self-improvement” ladder but a return to alignment and you will carry yourself through various cycles and iterations as you go through life.
If you’re ready to step away from the Void and to cultivate unconditional self-acceptance then you’ll probably enjoy my book Shadow Life: Freedom From BS in an Unreal World.
Practical Ways to Step Out of the Shame Loop
If this is all making sense to you, then here are some grounded ways to begin shifting out of shame-driven living so you can flow with something real instead:
1. Notice the substitute loop in real time
When you feel the urge to scroll, consume, buy, chase, or distract yourself then pause for a moment and ask:
“What am I actually feeling underneath all of this?”
You’re not trying to stop the behaviour forcefully – you’re simply bringing awareness to the impulse so you can interrupt the loop.
2. Separate need from truth
When you can feel a compulsion starting to arise then check in with yourself and ask:
“Is this something I genuinely value or something I’m using to avoid shame and discomfort?”
This helps distinguish real desire from compensatory cravings that reinforce shame and the Void.
3. Allow one moment of non-fixing presence per day
Cultivate the skill of being able to sit for a few minutes without trying to improve, optimise, or resolve yourself – just let yourself be as you are without editing anything.
This directly weakens the performance reflex that comes with shame and allows you to broaden your window of tolerance for just being real.
4. Reduce the language of self-image and identity
Notice how often you think in terms of “I am this” or “I need to become that” and train yourself to shift towards “this is what is happening right now”.
This brings you back into reality instead of old stories.
5. Choose one action from truth, not tension
Once a day, do one small thing that feels clean and aligned, even if it’s something ‘simple’ like a conversation, a task, setting and maintaining a boundary, or a taking period of rest.
Real action breaks the compulsive loop more than insight ever will.
The Final Word: They Feed On Your Shame
The Void isn’t your enemy – it’s just a signal that tells you when you’ve deviated from the truth about yourself and life.
As a corollary, shame isn’t a personal flaw either – it’s just another distortion of perception that makes you forget that you’re already ‘enough’ and already capable of deeper wholeness than you’re currently experiencing.
The world will always offer substitutes for the truth we’re all really seeking – that’s just how attention, commerce, and culture function but NONE of them can replace the one thing you are actually looking for.
Return to truth and the endless search begins to dissolve – not because life becomes perfect but because you are no longer split from it.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to start leaving the Void and to start flowing with something real then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you get moving.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
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