Uncovering the shame

Quote of the day:

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. Nora Ephron

Writing about my shame was not easy. It felt as if I was standing up in front of a group in some Shame Anonymous Society, and declaring: "My name is Tamarika and I am infested with shame." It was as if I had come out of the closet and bared my deepest soul in public. It was scary and painful as I wrote about it but later, as the day wore on, I started to feel released, lighter, happier.  Two of the comments to my post were about disconnecting the shame from the writing.

Neil said:

You are free to express yourself to others. We will always back you up. The hard part is not with us or with the writing, but getting yourself to be comfortable with yourself.

Ilene wrote:

Why does one write? To make things right? To explain and exorcise? To rework the script? Is writing therapy? Or is it a way of pushing beyond the limitations put on us by childhood pains, of working the world out in a way that gives us power: gods and goddesses of the page.

So what is writers block? A refusal to take control, a lapse into self-destruction, a slip into the old patterns where no matter what, you're always helpless, small and never quite good enough? Let alone good enough to control or create your fate?

Or perhaps the two don't connect at all. Perhaps making friends with shame isn't it at all. Maybe recognizing at last that you don't need it - it's simply an old habit, a familiar tug on the leash.

Both were excellent reminders and pulled me deeper into myself. All the comments I received for that post brought me back to reality.

The people who did the shaming knew not what they did. Even as they shamed me for my writing (hence the connection).

Bob used to explain to me that it was their way of stuffing me back into a box, shutting me up, and making whatever it was I was saying, disappear. My self-expression was not what others wanted, or felt comfortable hearing. None of it had anything to do with the validity of my life experience or feelings. It was about feeling safe and comfortable with themselves in whatever life situation they were facing at the time. And I, with all my needs and wants, was making waves.

Of course, if, as Neil suggested, I was comfortable with myself, those shaming words would have bounced off, and blown up and away out into the Universe. If I could only recognize that I don't need it, as Ilene wrote about my shame, I might just see it all as an old habit, a familiar tug on the leash. (Down, Fido!)

And so, Danny, if you thought my first book was ground breaking, the next is more formidable. For, as I explore teachers' emotions while interacting with children they consider challenging, I find myself uncovering my own emotional story. The more I share my emotional journey, or so teachers gratefully tell me over and over again, the more they allow themselves to uncover their own stories.

No time for wimping around now wondering what this or that person fears in my words. No time for the ancient wounds to rise up and bite me the closer I am to writing it down. Fear, the final frontier, an old friend of mine used to say. Yesterday at a training of early childhood teachers we talked deeply and sincerely about the way we were disciplined and how it affects our adult behaviors in the classroom. I watched teachers as they bared their deepest fears and anxieties and wept as they realized how these feelings were affecting their classroom management strategies, and, more importantly, their sometimes, misguided perceptions about children. It was powerful. And I was inspired by their courage.

The heck with it! It is time for me to jump right out of the box ...

Comments

[tamarika]

Joared,
It is confusing for all of us to see "Tamar" and to realize it is not me but "Tamar" from "Only Connect!" http://www.only-connect.blogspot.com/

So I will have to give Tamar the credit for saying we give children what we never got. And, yes, I agree with you ... it is always helpful to have an idea about what it must feel like. The danger with that, though, is that sometimes I am over sensitive or try to over compensate because I think I "know how it feels," and I really don't. Because, ultimately, each person's life experience is totally and completely unique and we can never *really* know what it feels like to be them!

[Joared]

I couldn't agree more with Danny,
"You are giving these young children exactly what you never got..." I strongly believe the success of many types of therapeutic interventions with all age groups, including the elderly, are successful when individuals are able to give others "what they never got." The recognition is there immediately with instinctive knowledge of the need.

[tamarika]

Hi Winston, my old "twitter" buddy! Thanks for the words of support and encouragement.

Tamar,
I appreciate you sharing your story right here at this post. "Giving children what you never got," are words that resonate with me. And now I work with teachers helping them do the same. And, gee, I love how you say, "We are only as sick as our secrets!"

Danny,
Of course you will read it first! I will send it to you first! Oy! But I have to write it first!

[tamar]

Your recent posts on shame, writer's block, and some causes/responses touched me deeply. Your courage to face the demons and to blog about them boggles my mind. Kol hakavod. We are often only as sick as our secrets!

When I was a new Head Start teacher during the mid-sixties, in Cambridge, MA, I was enormously successful in touching my young students in ways that helped them to explore their worlds, to embrace their feelings, to honor their thoughts and creations, and to heal from their hurts, many utterly cruel. I soon became a resource teacher and training counselor for Peace Corps volunteers preparing to work in preschools in developing African countries. These volunteers, my own preschool students and their families, and the words of a wise child psychiatrist now come back to me. "Why am I so successful?" I challenged him. "I don't think I am doing anything special." "You are giving these young children exactly what you never got, and because the content and the giving are so natural, so authentic, and so healing for you, it all works," his reply.

Often, I wish I had stayed in the field. Perhaps I would have gone farther in helping my students and others. And, I might have brought myself farther ahead in the healing.

Thanks for focusing me on my own stuff and remembering its origins and ways of working through it even as it collides with life today.

[Danny]

I'm just sad I won't be able to work with you on this one. But I'll be first in line to read it. Definitely sounds like another "ground breaker" and "shame breaker!"