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mysticism
March 2008 
Shame ~ the insidious one...
Posted on Sep 20th, 2006
by 
Kenn
Kenn
Most recently I have come to realize that shame had an isidious role in my life. It reached far and wide within my life saturating my experience with my awareness numbed to its presence. I motivated myself with it, I corrected myself with it, and at times I parented my children with it when I had reached an impasse. It crippled my resolve, created malaise, and drove me to an obsessive quality to do things better but without direction so there was a feeling of being lost. I do not know where it began but regardless it is a result of my interpretation of what I was experiencing and the best I could do in incorporating it into 'how to do physical life'.
The other day after Mom and Alec had finished moving I needed another carseat since Zach's was in their car so I went to the basement to get the ones they use. In a room full of boxes and assorted items I found the seat with a pile of my old books in it. A book on Tai Chi, the Tao De Ching, Confuscious, on and on in a pile of about a dozen. Among them was one that stuck to my hand; John Bradshaw's "Healing the Shame that Binds You". I had purchased it long ago shortly after college and never really got into it. I had experienced his PBS series "The Family" while in the drouths of my parents divorce in high school and it had helped me organize and make sense of my experience and nourished my understanding. What I learned of family of origin issues and systems I have carried with me ever since. This book for some reason was an answer to recent frustrations with my life. My supposed 'inadvertant' self-sabotage financially and relationally that just made life difficult.
As I began to read I began to understand. Everything about my identity has had colorings of shame either by subtle expression or 'being' presence. The 'hole' in my life, the feeling of not belonging, of being an outsider, all stems from this 'toxic shame' as Bradshaw labels the unhealthy version of shame. In fact the blog should be labeled "Toxic Shame ~ the insidious one..." for true shame is a natural emotion that is when we reach our limitations and realize our shortcomings. It is a mile marker, a sign....not the fuel or vehicle to push us to our destinations. It is not an ever present energy that limits and conforms us to what is 'right' and 'appropriate'. It is an 'ah hah' that is natural to us when we reach a limit or find that something doesn't work. We understand then move on....this is not how I had taught myself to do life from a very early age. I have been confused it with humility, politeness, even spirituality....that I needed to have this boa constrictor of shame to keep me in my place, like Ka from the Jungle Book lulling me to sleep with his song. Maybe its the vestiges of the "Original Sin" so touted by my Judeo-Christian upbringing and the Grandparents that so tightly clung to it. I do not know. I only know today....I only have the kNow.
I have been realizing and releasing since that day when I started reading Bradshaw's book. As with any catalyst it now no longer holds the potency that it did that evening but the chain reaction has begun and I am excavating my Self. My first priority is my children and how I interact and focus them on their life experience and cleaning it up there. That will help me process the present and the past at the same time, one as a parent and another as the symbolic child, my children. The dull aching malaise I've been waking up with most of my life has faded. Feeling I was being shamed into getting up as a child has been process and has been grieved and continues to be released. The energy needed to maintain my life comes more easily now its not an dragging effort to force myself. I feel this is the last part of the big puzzle.
The shamed one will not allow themselves happiness, success, prosperity, love, joy...etc. They are given the mode and responsibility to move in shame in such a toxic way that it was only the force of self preservating will that got me through my early 20's. As I've always said since that time...I'm in the bonus round of life I never expected to live this far. Today after this experience its like the gameshow is over and I've been allowed to set off in a better direction, out of the TV and into the world. The observer has gotten the opportunity to be without worry of the shame responsibility and knows it doesn't need to be maintain the shame its just an exterior mile marker experienced. The days of doing mock shamings, obsessing, to run life scenarios to make sure I don't do something wrong are gone. My false self is dying into the true self that has been given the way to release the toxic shame as a the dying gift of the face and protection that preserved and protected it so long. I mourn its death and at the same time bless the birth of the true self. Its a quiet thing this thing called life...love expressed and present as form.
Kenn
The other day after Mom and Alec had finished moving I needed another carseat since Zach's was in their car so I went to the basement to get the ones they use. In a room full of boxes and assorted items I found the seat with a pile of my old books in it. A book on Tai Chi, the Tao De Ching, Confuscious, on and on in a pile of about a dozen. Among them was one that stuck to my hand; John Bradshaw's "Healing the Shame that Binds You". I had purchased it long ago shortly after college and never really got into it. I had experienced his PBS series "The Family" while in the drouths of my parents divorce in high school and it had helped me organize and make sense of my experience and nourished my understanding. What I learned of family of origin issues and systems I have carried with me ever since. This book for some reason was an answer to recent frustrations with my life. My supposed 'inadvertant' self-sabotage financially and relationally that just made life difficult.
As I began to read I began to understand. Everything about my identity has had colorings of shame either by subtle expression or 'being' presence. The 'hole' in my life, the feeling of not belonging, of being an outsider, all stems from this 'toxic shame' as Bradshaw labels the unhealthy version of shame. In fact the blog should be labeled "Toxic Shame ~ the insidious one..." for true shame is a natural emotion that is when we reach our limitations and realize our shortcomings. It is a mile marker, a sign....not the fuel or vehicle to push us to our destinations. It is not an ever present energy that limits and conforms us to what is 'right' and 'appropriate'. It is an 'ah hah' that is natural to us when we reach a limit or find that something doesn't work. We understand then move on....this is not how I had taught myself to do life from a very early age. I have been confused it with humility, politeness, even spirituality....that I needed to have this boa constrictor of shame to keep me in my place, like Ka from the Jungle Book lulling me to sleep with his song. Maybe its the vestiges of the "Original Sin" so touted by my Judeo-Christian upbringing and the Grandparents that so tightly clung to it. I do not know. I only know today....I only have the kNow.
I have been realizing and releasing since that day when I started reading Bradshaw's book. As with any catalyst it now no longer holds the potency that it did that evening but the chain reaction has begun and I am excavating my Self. My first priority is my children and how I interact and focus them on their life experience and cleaning it up there. That will help me process the present and the past at the same time, one as a parent and another as the symbolic child, my children. The dull aching malaise I've been waking up with most of my life has faded. Feeling I was being shamed into getting up as a child has been process and has been grieved and continues to be released. The energy needed to maintain my life comes more easily now its not an dragging effort to force myself. I feel this is the last part of the big puzzle.
The shamed one will not allow themselves happiness, success, prosperity, love, joy...etc. They are given the mode and responsibility to move in shame in such a toxic way that it was only the force of self preservating will that got me through my early 20's. As I've always said since that time...I'm in the bonus round of life I never expected to live this far. Today after this experience its like the gameshow is over and I've been allowed to set off in a better direction, out of the TV and into the world. The observer has gotten the opportunity to be without worry of the shame responsibility and knows it doesn't need to be maintain the shame its just an exterior mile marker experienced. The days of doing mock shamings, obsessing, to run life scenarios to make sure I don't do something wrong are gone. My false self is dying into the true self that has been given the way to release the toxic shame as a the dying gift of the face and protection that preserved and protected it so long. I mourn its death and at the same time bless the birth of the true self. Its a quiet thing this thing called life...love expressed and present as form.
Kenn
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