My colleague and I were discussing Silken Laumann’s article in MacLean’s magazine about her new memoir. My co-worker believes that Silken should have waited until her parents died to reveal all of her story, because it was their story too. I explained that I understood the need that Silken and the many who have written their memoirs may be experiencing to ‘come clean.’ Once you have a platform where you are trying to inspire or change or speak into the lives of others, there is an inner urge to purge. I know this from experience. As soon as I offered myself as a Life Coach and began blogging ‘inspirational’ material it seemed all of the dark lurking shadows of all my shame rose to torture and mock me. All of the ‘work’ I had done previously in various forms of therapy seemed to suddenly not have worked. What I did was join a memoir class. The only ‘cure’ for my shame was compassionate witness. I needed to share my story.
Shame is a social-self affliction. We all experience, well experiences…moments of significance and for whatever reason, whether we are told specifically we are bad or we reach that conclusion on our own, we take in the notion that not what we have done is ‘bad,’ or what was done to us was not our fault, but that we must be ‘bad.’
I accepted shame very early into my life. Once it set up residence inside of me, I began to collect evidence from almost every ‘experience’ that proved that I was ‘bad’ – deserving of shame. The shame that most needed to be ‘cleared’ once I started writing my memoir was sexual molestation. I had never talked about it before. I didn’t believe it affected me. It did. One of many beliefs I needed to give up. I needed my experience witnessed and acknowledged by others in order for it to cease affecting me in the present. Shame, to me, is like mold. It lives and grows and has its way in the dark. Once it is exposed to light and air, it dries up and blows away.
The great discovery for me, and for most shame survivors/overcomers is that our inside, essential-self part, remains intact – undamaged. Our inner core remains our true nature, our true self. Once all the shame mold is exposed and cleared, the essential self is still there, as it always has been, ready to do and be and become all that it was meant to. And most of all, ready to assist all the other essential selves to expose and clear their shame mold. I keep a solid white crystal ball that reminds me that my essential-self remains untarnished.
I haven’t published my memoir. I don’t feel the need to. Writing it and having it read was what I needed in order to move through my shame. I share my stories when they can be of service or help to another. I am no longer ashamed.
Shame is a social-self affliction. We all experience, well experiences…moments of significance and for whatever reason, whether we are told specifically we are bad or we reach that conclusion on our own, we take in the notion that not what we have done is ‘bad,’ or what was done to us was not our fault, but that we must be ‘bad.’
I accepted shame very early into my life. Once it set up residence inside of me, I began to collect evidence from almost every ‘experience’ that proved that I was ‘bad’ – deserving of shame. The shame that most needed to be ‘cleared’ once I started writing my memoir was sexual molestation. I had never talked about it before. I didn’t believe it affected me. It did. One of many beliefs I needed to give up. I needed my experience witnessed and acknowledged by others in order for it to cease affecting me in the present. Shame, to me, is like mold. It lives and grows and has its way in the dark. Once it is exposed to light and air, it dries up and blows away.
The great discovery for me, and for most shame survivors/overcomers is that our inside, essential-self part, remains intact – undamaged. Our inner core remains our true nature, our true self. Once all the shame mold is exposed and cleared, the essential self is still there, as it always has been, ready to do and be and become all that it was meant to. And most of all, ready to assist all the other essential selves to expose and clear their shame mold. I keep a solid white crystal ball that reminds me that my essential-self remains untarnished.
I haven’t published my memoir. I don’t feel the need to. Writing it and having it read was what I needed in order to move through my shame. I share my stories when they can be of service or help to another. I am no longer ashamed.
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