watch your step

Guilt: remorseful awareness for having done something wrong.
Shame: A painful emotion caused by a strong sense of unworthiness or disgrace.

Guilt is necessary. Guilt let me know when I have done something wrong. Guilt keeps me making amends when that is required. When I make a mistake and I feel guilty, I need to clean up for myself and get on with my life. It is important that I feel guilt for what I am culpable for, it keeps me humble and at peace with myself and the world.

Shame is domestication. We are taught that we are unworthy for some internal basic flaw in our nature. We learn that because we are not thin enough, not beautiful enough, not smart enough, not quick enough, not ________ enough, that we are not worthy of love, success, happiness. I have carried a lethal dose of shame for most of my life. I have carried shame that tells me my body is not desirable or worthy of being looked at. In spite of great efforts on the part of my lover, this shame has lived within for as long as I can remember. It has certainly eased in the past 15 years, but the seeds of it are still here to haunt me. As I become a dancer and a mover, I find them haunting me more and more loudly. I am not good enough because this body does not measure up to the societal norm.

My Benedictine Monk friends remind me that everyone of us is kissed by God on the way to our birth. This is one place that I began to heal the shame. Everyone has been kissed, everyone is loved by their creator, everyone. We don’t choose who. Each and everyone, no matter what nation, what religion, what skin color, what guilt they carry, each and everyone is equally loved by their creator. This helps me immensely. It describes my world view. And I realize that it is easier for me to believe this of others than to believe it of myself. Humph, I also see that I can believe that God will love me, but I don’t know if you will.

I held a great fear that if I spoke my truth you would leave the room. If I was to show you the deepest heart of myself and my thoughts you would turn away. I feared being abandoned and left alone in the world because of some deep flaw in my heart and soul. Original sin, cellulite and a body large in the hips and small in the breast plagued my belief in myself. These are things I had no control over. They were the toss of the genetic and religious dice and I had to live with them. I struggled, got strident, tried to claim my flaws with pride, tried to change my beliefs by force of will, but still the shame lingers. I have had enough of it.

One year, a long time ago, I gave up guilt for New Years. It wasn’t a great year. Giving up guilt results in alcoholic addictive behaviors. I got the message wrong. Now I am working on giving up shame. It is a little late for a New Year’s resolution, but there it is. I am giving up shame. Shame holds me back from being my full self as an artist. Shame stops me from speaking my truth. I am letting my shame wash off me this year. I leave puddles of it on the ground to be washed away by the rain. Please watch out and don’t step in them. If you do wash it carefully and quickly off your shoes.