SUNDAY SEEDS OF THOUGHT: Who Told You That Was Embarrassing?

embarass2: Yeah. Welcome to another episode of Sunday Seeds of Thought with Rooted in Rising. I'm Dr. Carmela Maxwell. You know what I've been thinking about lately? Embarrassment. Not the kind where you trip in public and pretend you were just checking the structural integrity of the sidewalk. I'm talking about the kind of embarrassment that somebody else taught you to feel. Because have you ever stopped and asked yourself, who told you that was embarrassing? Seriously. Who decided that certain things were embarrassing? Who established these invisible rules about what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to look, how excited we're allowed to get, or how we're supposed to behave at a certain age? And more importantly, why the hell are we still following them? Because I have questions. And apparently, today we're asking all of them. Somewhere along the way, we all inherited this invisible rule book. Nobody handed it to us. Nobody asked us to sign it. But somehow we know the rules. Don't be too loud. Don't be too excited. Don't look too eager. Don't dress too young. Don't act too old. Don't tell people you're lonely. Don't admit you don't know something. Don't laugh too hard. Don't love somebody too quickly. And God forbid you actually look like you're enjoying yourself in public. Because apparently, enthusiasm is embarrassing now. And I want to know when that happened. When did being genuinely excited about something become something we needed to apologize for? Think about little kids. A child can see a butterfly and lose their entire mind. They're jumping, screaming, pointing, running around like they've just discovered a new species. And what do adults say? Calm down. Stop being so loud. Everybody's looking at you. Now, obviously children need to learn how to behave in different environments, but somewhere between teaching appropriate behavior and teaching social awareness, we sometimes teach children that being visibly happy is something to be ashamed of. And then those children grow up. And suddenly they're the adults who can't celebrate their own accomplishments without minimizing them. Someone says, Congratulations. And instead of saying, Thank you, I'm so proud of myself, we say, it's nothing. Nothing? Baby, you worked six months for that promotion. You went back to school while raising children. You survived something that nearly broke you. And now you're standing there acting like you accidentally picked up a certificate on your way to Target. Stop it. Now let's talk a little psychology. Because embarrassment actually serves a social purpose. Human beings are social creatures. We care about belonging, acceptance, and how other people perceive us. Embarrassment can help us recognize when we violated a social expectation. It can also communicate to other people that we understand something awkward happened. But here's where things get interesting. Not every social expectation deserves our obedience. Psychologists have studied this thing called the spotlight effect. Essentially, we tend to overestimate how much other people notice us. We think everybody saw us stumble. Everybody noticed the stain on our shirt. Everybody heard us pronounce that word incorrectly. Everybody is analyzing our appearance. Meanwhile, most people are too busy worrying about themselves to notice what we're doing. And even when they do notice, they're probably going to forget. Think about the last time you saw somebody do something mildly embarrassing in public. Can you remember the exact date? What were they wearing? What happened afterward? Probably not. But let you do something embarrassing? Suddenly your brain is running a documentary series about it. Season one, episode six, The Incident at the Grocery Store, featuring exclusive footage and commentary from your inner critic. And the worst part, you are the executive producer. You keep renewing the damn show. But embarrassment becomes especially complicated when it starts controlling our behavior. When we stop ourselves from doing something harmless because we're afraid of how it might look, we aren't necessarily protecting ourselves. Sometimes we're just maintaining an image we never consciously chose. So let's talk about aging. Because this one gets on my fucking nerves. At some point, society starts assigning expiration dates to things. You're too old to wear that. Too old to start that career. Too old to go back to school. Too old to dance like that. Too old to have a crush. Too old to be excited about your birthday. Excuse me? Who established these age limits? Was there a committee? Did somebody hold a meeting? Because I certainly didn't get a r an invitation. And women in particular get handed a very interesting set of expectations. We're supposed to age gracefully, but not look old. Be confident. But not conceited. Be attractive, but not try too hard. Be mature, but still youthful. And somehow we're supposed to accomplish all of this while pretending that we don't care about what anybody thinks. It's exhausting. And here's something I've noticed. People will sometimes call something embarrassing simply because they're uncomfortable watching another person exercise freedom they haven't given themselves. A woman wears something bold. She's too old for that. A man starts taking dance lessons at 55. Isn't that embarrassing? A mother decides to go back to school. Why would she do that now? Maybe because she's alive? Maybe because she has interests? Maybe because the world didn't stop offering possibilities when she turned 35? I don't know who needs to hear this. But adulthood is not supposed to be a slow, dignified disappearance. You are allowed to keep becoming, and you are allowed to look a little ridiculous while you figure it out. Now, this is the part where I want us to get a little more vulnerable. Because one of the strangest things we've normalized is being embarrassed about wanting things, especially love. Somewhere along the way, we decided that caring too much was unattractive. That being excited about somebody was desperate, that expressing affection made you weak. that admitting you wanted companionship somehow meant you weren't independent. And I think that's incredibly sad. Because wanting to be loved is not embarrassing. Wanting somebody to call you is not embarrassing. Wanting a relationship, also not embarrassing. Wanting to be held Understood, appreciated, or chosen does not mean you lack self-worth. It means you're human. Now let's be clear. There is a difference between expressing your desires and abandoning yourself to obtain them. Those are two very different conversations. But somewhere in the middle of teaching people to have standards, we started teaching them to be ashamed of their tenderness. Don't text first. Don't say you miss them. Don't tell them you're excited. Don't let them know you care. Why? Because then they'll know you have feelings. the horror. A human being experiencing human emotions. Somebody alert the authorities. Listen. You can have boundaries and still be affectionate. You can have standards and still be enthusiastic. You can protect your heart without pretending you don't have one. And if somebody makes you feel foolish simply because you were sincere, that doesn't automatically mean your sincerity was the problem. Sometimes the embarrassing thing isn't caring. It's how much energy we spend pretending we don't. I also want us to consider how embarrassment is shaped by culture, family, and community. Because not everybody grows up with the same rules. Some of us were raised in environments where you didn't discuss family problems outside the house. You didn't talk about money. You didn't admit you were struggling. You didn't tell people you were lonely. You certainly didn't discuss certain bodily functions. And depending on your upbringing, you may have learned that asking for help was embarrassing. That crying in front of people was embarrassing. That not knowing something was embarrassing. That making mistakes was embarrassing. And sometimes those messages came from people who genuinely loved us. People who thought they were protecting us. People who had learned those same rules from the generations before them. But love doesn't automatically make every lesson correct. And tradition doesn't automatically make every expectation healthy. We can appreciate where we came from while still questioning what we inherited. Maybe your family taught you to never let people see you struggle? But what if that lesson has made it impossible for you to ask for support? Maybe you were taught to always look put together. But what if that expectation has made you feel ashamed of perfectly normal changes in your body? Maybe you learned that being wrong was humiliating. But what if that fear has kept you from trying anything unfamiliar? At some point, we have to ask ourselves whether we're living according to our values or simply avoiding the embarrassment of disappointing other people's expectations. And those are not always the same thing. Here's another thing I want to challenge. Why are grown adults so embarrassed about being beginners? Seriously. Well, watch somebody learn a language, start exercising, take singing lessons, or try a new hobby. And the first thing some people want to do is laugh. They sound terrible. They don't know what they're doing. Why would they post that? Because they're learning. That's what learning looks like. It looks awkward. It sounds imperfect. It involves mistakes. And sometimes it involves doing something so badly that you have no choice but to laugh at yourself. But somewhere along the way, We started treating competence as the price of participation, as though you aren't allowed to enjoy something until you're good at it. And I think that's one of the reasons so many adults stop trying new things. Children will attempt something 20 times without questioning whether they're qualified to enjoy it. Adults will attempt something twice, feel embarrassed, and decide it's not for them. Imagine how much joy we sacrifice because we don't want to be seen learning. Imagine how many experiences we miss because we want to arrive already knowing what we're doing. You are allowed to be terrible at something. You are allowed to mispronounce a word in another language. You are allowed to take a dance class and have absolutely no rhythm. You are allowed to pick up an instrument and sound like you're fighting with it. And you are allowed to enjoy every single second. Not everything needs to be an accomplishment. Sometimes It can just be an experience. Now, before somebody takes this episode and decides I'm encouraging everybody to behave an unsupervised raccoon, let me clarify something. Not all embarrassment is unnecessary. Sometimes embarrassment tells us we've done something hurtful. Sometimes it alerts us to behavior that deserves reflection. Sometimes we should apologize, correct ourselves, or reconsider how we're showing up in the world. That's called accountability. And accountability matters. But there's a difference between being embarrassed because you've harmed somebody and being embarrassed because somebody might think you're weird. There's a difference between recognizing inappropriate behavior and punishing yourself for being different. And there's a difference between having social awareness and living under constant social surveillance. The goal isn't to stop caring about other people. The goal is stop treating every imagined opinion as instruction. Because if your behavior is harmless, aligned with your values, and brings you joy, why the hell would somebody else's discomfort automatically become your responsibility? So here's what I want you to think about this Sunday. The next time you catch yourself feeling embarrassed, I want you to ask three questions. First, did I actually do something wrong? Second, Am I uncomfortable because this violates my values or because somebody else might judge me? And third, whose voice am I hearing right now? Because sometimes that voice isn't yours. Sometimes it's a parent, a teacher, an old partner, a childhood friend, a social media comment, a cultural expectation, a person who made you feel small years ago. And you've been carrying their opinion around like it's a law. But here's the thing. You can put it down. You can decide that being excited isn't embarrassing. That getting older isn't embarrassing. That wanting love isn't embarrassing. That learning something new or being proud of yourself also not embarrassing. And that occasionally making a complete fool of yourself is simply part of the human experience. Life is already complicated enough. We have bills, responsibilities, relationships, children, careers, bodies that occasionally decide to revolt without consulting us. We do not need to add unnecessary shame to the list. So dance badly. Ask the question. Wear the outfit. Celebrate your accomplishment. Tell somebody that you're excited. Try the thing that you've been avoiding. And if you catch yourself thinking, my god, this is so embarrassing, ask yourself one more time, who told you that? And do they really deserve that much authority over your life? Because sometimes the most freeing thing you can do isn't becoming a different person. It's finally allowing yourself to be the person you were before somebody convinced you that being yourself was embarrassing. And that, my friends, is your Sunday seed. As always, stay rooted in who you are. and keep rising into who you're becoming. Take care.