My Story, Part 1 – Why shame and vulnerability are such a big deal to me
So why do I want to talk about shame and vulnerability all the time? Because I know what it’s like to be ruled by shame. It is a terrible master. Learning about shame and what vulnerability means has brought new levels of freedom in my life. It has been transformational for me.
I grew up in a world where it seemed shame was the fuel we ran on. Of course, I didn’t realize that was what it was at the time. But feelings of never being good enough, no matter how hard I tried to be ‘perfect’, were my constant companion. Love always seemed to be offered on condition: if I behaved like a good little girl, then I would be loved; if I wasn’t ‘good’, I felt the sting of condemnation. I’m sure my parents never intended to communicate this message. But when messages of shame are passed down from generation to generation, that kind of stuff flows straight to the children.
This feeling and believing of “not good enough” resulted in a lot of fear. Constantly afraid of what people would think of me, wondering what I needed to do to feel accepted. I remember thinking to myself in high school that I could not imagine living one day without being afraid. I could not even imagine what that would be like, so ever-present was my fear.
I learned to hate myself and to hide my feelings. Actually, I learned to not feel at all. Although that’s not true: as much as I learned how to numb myself to emotion, those emotions went somewhere. They’ve been locked in a vault in my heart for decades.
I learned to become a chameleon. Just be who you think people are expecting you to be. Don’t dare be yourself…actually I had no idea who I was because “who I was” wasn’t good enough. I needed to be someone else. I believed that was the only way people would accept me. I wanted so desperately to feel accepted, to have connection, I would do anything to get even a small morsel of it.
Much of this belief system was running in the background; I wasn’t consciously aware this is what I believed but it definitely drove my actions. It wasn’t until I began learning about grace and experiencing it that I started crawling out from under my boulder of shame. Ironically, I didn’t start learning about grace when I became a Christian, or even when I was baptized. My life experience was my frame of reference for my Christian faith and because grace was foreign to my life, it was foreign to my Christian life as well.
Learning about grace has been a journey. There’s been a continuous process of unlearning the lies I believed. And as my beliefs shifted I became more open to hearing what grace actually is and I started to experience it through others who understand grace.
And then I saw Brene Brown’s TED Talk on “The Power of Vulnerability” and it blew my mind. More about that tomorrow.
Brushing off the blog…
Every time I decide to post something on my blog after completely ignoring it for months, I feel a pang of shame. Has it been THIS LONG since I posted something? If I post something now, will people wonder why I’m even bothering since it seems like I’ve abandoned the whole thing? It’s a little scary jumping back in and I always find myself making excuses so people won’t think poorly of me for being so inconsistent. I get distracted and busy and life seems to vie for my time and I forget about the blog until something inspires me to write again.
So here I am, dusting off the blog (it’s very dusty in here and I hate dusting). But I feel the spark of inspiration so I’m going for it again. This time my inspiration comes from something a friend posted on her blog (allthiscrazygrace.com). There is something called “31 Days” that happens in October every year. You pick a topic and write about it every day for the entire month of October (31 days). I’ve written about shame and vulnerability on my blog before. It’s something I’m very passionate about and it’s something I’ve been chewing on and processing for over 5 years, ever since I saw Brene Brown’s TED Talk on “The Power of Vulnerability”. Lately I’ve been feeling constipated in a sense – there are so many thoughts and ideas and connections around this topic rolling around in my head. I need to get them out…onto the page to get some cohesion to them, to help me put it all together. I’ve been meaning to do this for a couple of months and it hasn’t really happened. When I heard about “31 Days” I thought this might be just the opportunity and motivation to get me doing what I’ve been wanting to do.
So starting October 1st, I’m going to be putting down my thoughts on shame and vulnerability, every day for the month of October. I hope you’ll join me and ultimately I hope that you will be encouraged by my journey and what I’ve learned. It has been life-changing for me and I believe it can be for all of us.
See you on the 1st!