A friend posted a beautiful video about giving up Shame for Lent.
It got me to thinking what was shame. Where did it live, how did it get there and is it more a mental idea or a physical feeling or both?
I went back into my life and searched out shameful behaviors or feelings I had and what I did or didn't do that prompted shame to arrive.
What I recall more, is the feelings of shame leaving me.
Shame was a feeling about myself - that was untrue.
For when my father's sexual abuse came to light, my innocence was returned.
Shame and innocence don't go together.
In reconciling my truth, my past, my behaviors, my thoughts, my beliefs and even my so called 'sins'. - I understood one thing. That given the choices I had at the time or the beliefs I held, my wrongful behavior was not conscious.
I recall sobbing and walking down our road - in shock and awe of the journey I had been on - and how denial and a cult like religion - gave choices no one in their right mind would choose. I was disconnected; but from me and my truth. It seemed I wasn't even present in my own world.
I wasn't ashamed at who I had been.
It all made sense coming from whence I came.
Given the upbringing and all its factors, there simply wasn't another choice, until I was able to be free from denial.
I also recalled being ashamed of my truth - in the early days.
I was ashamed at being abused.
Ashamed of my family's legacy.
Ashamed I lived behind the newspaper and TV headlines - the residual affect of my father's behavior. And then ashamed of the religion I had been a part of. Ashamed that my religion forgave his sins and allowed abuse to continue. Ashamed of how I had supported folks who supported him.
It took a lot of writing, walking, reading, sobbing and distance and time to feel comfortable with my past. A past I was born into - schooled and groomed into. A past that wasn't my design - though I lived it completely.
When I understood that so much of who I was - was built upon the ideals of my parents and not me - shame slipped away. It wasn't as my nephew used to say, "Not my Poor Choice."
When I understood that I wasn't my religion - but that religion was a bunch of beliefs in my mind - I found compassion for me and how I walked.
The more years now that I have lived a very conscious life, a life that reflects my own beliefs, emotions and feelings - I don't recall shame. Perhaps an uncomfortable feeling of going against family and church.
I feel that often victims of childhood abuse carry forward Shame. Shame in somehow believing that the past was their making. That the abuse was something They did wrong - instead of what wrongdoing was done to them.
There is a definition of Forgiveness - "Giving up all hope of having had a different past."
It was in accepting all facets of my childhood and past - I was able to sit in the emotion of forgiveness. I didn't need it to be anything else. I think shame comes in - when you fail to produce a good childhood - when you have had a bad one.
Back to Lent and what I feel I need to give up.
I had to go and look at why folks did this - what is the objective - in order to see if I was willing to play along.
"The main purpose of "giving up" things in Lent is to bring us closer to God; to prioritize God; to put God in the center of our minds and lives; to make God the focal point."
"Purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving, simple living and self-denial."
