“Yoga Makes you you” is what Bikram says near the end of the 90 minutes of yoga, and until today I had always envisioned a new me.
Today I realized that I get to be me minus the shame.
Shame was my inner state of being.
Shame colored the lenses with which I seen myself in the world, or felt myself in the world, I didn’t leave home shameless; I was filled to the brim with feelings of shame, in shame of being me.
In shame of being me, yet I didn’t fully know the cause or when the seed was planted, it seemed I came this way.
Now, I know better, the seed was planted by my father and fertilized by my mother in her reaction to me.
It wasn’t until I read the book “Hannah’s Gift” by Maria Housden that it affirmed my belief, that depending upon the way my mother handled the facts it would directly affect me.
The tragedy of abuse, of incest, of being raped by your father, is it is bad enough his treatment of you, but then to have a mother do nothing compounds the shame.
Her lack of doing anything to move away from that man locked me in my closet of shame.
I lived there for 51 years.
Today in yoga I finally felt free from the shame I carried about being an abused me.
“Fake it ‘til you Make it” quote came to mind as I looked back upon my last 5 years, I literally forced myself to stand tall, when inside I was shrinking in shame.
To walk a walk of one with no shame hasn’t been easy. To stand and believe in myself against all enemies both foreign (strangers) and domestic (family), to put myself out there all bruised and beaten claiming my rights to be me.
I didn’t know if I was writing my death sentence, if I would survive, but I knew for sure if I stayed in the closet of shame I would have.
I have been out of the closet for 5 ½ years and today was the first time I felt it is my right.
It is my right to live shamelessly me!
