Update to an Old Maxim

All the mistakes, missteps ~

fall on my face messes 

too often accompanied by 

swathes of guilt and shame. 

You made your bed, 

    you can lie in it. 

guilt and shame dragged, 

getting heavier, harder to 

push down year after year, 

something had to change .

You made your bed, 

    you can change the sheets.

Reminded of my change as I 

changed the sheets on my bed ~

clean and fresh as sleep settles softly.

Blackened feelings washed away.

“The present changes the past. Looking back 

you do not find what you left behind.”

~ Kiran Desai,  The Inheritance of Loss

BeCalming

Mind full like chittering, chattering monkeys leaping branch to branch, swinging in wide arcs playing across space and time

Mindfulness 

calms chitter-chatter accepts distraction without shame or annoyance, settles swirling eddies of thought to focus on the moment.

“Let go of your mind and then be mindful. Close your ears and listen.”

~ Rumi, Love’s Ripening: Rumi on the Heart’s Journey

Choice is Relative

Addiction is definitely not a choice

Active drug abuse, alcohol abuse 
Or any form of abuse looks filled with choices.
Choices with only one goal but many possible ends

Choices that are unhealthy and dangerous
Why?
Addiction is not a choice.

Recovery is filled with choices
Choices that feel blind and filled with shame
Choices that start and stop
   Start and stop
       Start and stop

Determination to recover and find balance
Has an invisible quality of courage
  Slipped on each morning
    Cold and unfamiliar

Determination to recover and find solid ground
Has an invisible quality of joy
  To greet each day
     With hope and belief in living again.

“We can’t calm waves, but we can steer the ship.”

~ Hayley Long, Downside Up

A Troubled Journey

When the insides churn with
   Anger and fury
       Shame and regrets
    Disrespect and intolerance

Only the outsides are
   Shaped and polished
      Coloured and trimmed
Combed into respectability

Humanity is left in the dust
    Of personal disrespect and shame
To be gathered bit by bit
      Looking always for true inner respect.

“Healing can be a long and winding road or 

a straightforward march to the finish line.”

~ Alice McCall

Stigma: A Challenge on Both Sides

The challenge of stigma:

Deeply felt inside by both sides

Disgust anger fear or

Shame remorse guilt

When these two trilogies come together

Sparks and words do fly viciously back and forth

understanding and compassion become debris

communication and connection last in the tumultous storm

Stigma creates it’s own challenge of

“You’re wrong and I’m right!!” vs

“I must be a wrong person but I don’t want to be!”

“To not have your suffering recognized 

is an almost unbearable form of violence.”

~  Andrei Lankov

"Show Up, Be Seen, Live Brave" - Brene Brown

Personal growth does not seem to have an end point. This weekend was filled with two days of learning about the emotional traps of vulnerability and of shame. When the potentials of both of these traps are addressed on a personal level, stepping out of certain ineffective and possibly damaging behaviours is possible. This workshop, developed by Brené Brown, LLC and facilitated by Bryn Meadows, Certified Daring Way Facilitator, was illuminating and challenging. Brené Brown’s research into vulnerability expanded after she read the quote ‘it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and blood...who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high acheivement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. - Theodore Roosevelt”

As small group, we were able to discuss and disclose in a safe and well run environment. I appreciated and am grateful to all the attendees and especially to Bryn for this very worthwhile weekend of growth. The vitality in the room waxed and waned with emotions supported and softened by caring and laughter. 

For more information access the websites posted:
brenébrown.com
brynmeadows@me.com
thedaringway.com 

I am attaching a re-post from my blog post from June of this year:

Remembering Shame

This inspiration came from a garbage bag and a toothpick.
An innocent looking, but used, toothpick lay on my kitchen counter.  
Not especially dirty, but used and needing disposal.

The garbage bag? 
Innocent white plastic - a clean liner to my kitchen garbage container.

vivid shaming memories of 

everything done wrong, 
been told I’ve done wrong
even been suspected of wrong doing.

Throwing it in the freshly lined kitchen garbage pail, my hope was that it wouldn’t make a hole in bottom so nasty stuff wouldn’t leak out. As I put my fruit and vegetable peels in a separate container, I quickly dismissed that as an unlikely possibility.

vivid shaming memories of
who do you think you are
you can’t do that
don’t bother trying
you shouldn’t have done that

Memories, shaped like toothpicks, do not grow as we grow.
Forgotten parts of the memory are
youth of the child or teen or young parent............
exciting inspiration like fragile balloons
life experience behind the voice of that memory.
(and that voice may have been my own! using those same words on another!)

vivid self doubt
planted deep and nurtured carefully
fed and watered with shame and tears
roots clinging to the soil around spirit
choking out healthy growth.

Once self doubt is planted 
and if memory is to be believed 100%
can there be any turning back?
Or like the weeds in the garden, 
four foot tall thistles with vicious barbs,
or the undergrowth of an untamed field
are we willing to find tools to tackle this long planted self doubt?

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

~ Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: 

Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Listening to Voices - Repost - Revised

Self doubt - an inside job
A very personal and individual inside job.
Self doubt - an inside voice.
Quietly driving and energizing 
poverty of self-esteem.
Transition from self-doubt to healthy self-esteem
is a steep climb up a rocky cliff
never sure of footing
loose pebbles beneath
unfamiliar terrain
handholds and footholds
the roots of trees and dry grasses
threatening to trip, break bones and spirit.
Easier to stay at the bottom of the trail
in familiar but ugly terrain
unwilling to see that there are steps up and out
unaware of beauty and growth along the way
space and air at the rise of each summit.
Courage in each faltering step
also an inside job,
has a quiet voice of strength.

“Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever

you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing

to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.”

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Remembering Shame

This inspiration came from a garbage bag and a toothpick.
An innocent looking, but used, toothpick lay on my kitchen counter - a tester for a banana cake I baked. So, it was not especially dirty, but used and needing disposal.
The garbage bag? Innocent white plastic - a clean liner to my kitchen garbage container.

vivid shaming memories of 
everything done wrong, 
been told I’ve done wrong
even been suspected of wrong doing

Throwing the toothpick in the freshly lined kitchen garage pail, my hope was that it wouldn’t make a hole in the bottom of the bag so nasty stuff would not leak from the bag. Fruit and vegetable peels are put in a separate container, so I quickly dismissed that possibility.

vivid shaming memories of
who do you think you are
you can’t do that
don’t bother trying
you shouldn’t have done that

Memories, shaped like toothpicks, do not grow as we grow.
Forgotten in the mist of memory are
youth of the child or teen or young parent............
exciting inspiration like fragile balloons
life experience behind the voice of a memory.
(and that voice may have been my own! using those same words on another!)

vivid self doubt
planted deep and nurtured carefully
fed and watered with shame and tears
roots clinging to the soil around spirit
choking out healthy growth.

Once self doubt is planted 
and if memory is to be believed 100%
can there be any turning back?
Or like the weeds in the garden, 
four foot tall thistles with vicious barbs,
or the undergrowth of an untamed field
are we willing to find tools to tackle this long planted self doubt?

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

~ Brene Brown,  I Thought It Was Just Me: 

Women Reclaining Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Listening to Voices

Shame - an inside job

A very personal and individual inside job.

Shame - an inside voice

Sternly driving and energizing 

poverty of self-esteem

Transition from shame to healthy self-esteem

a steep climb up a rocky cliff

never sure of footing

loose pebbles beneath

unfamiliar terrain

handholds and footholds

roots of trees and dry grasses

threatening to trip, break bones and spirit

Easier to stay at the bottom of the trail

in familiar but ugly terrain

unwilling to see that there are steps up and out

unaware of beauty and growth along the way

space and air at the rise of each summit.

Courage in each faltering step

also an inside job,

with a quiet voice of strength.

“Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever

you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing

to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.”

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Barriers for Shame

Addiction - what a topic to choose for a theme!

How to write about a disease that creates such havoc, 

with hopes for a credible suggestion that there is a need 

for compassion for the folks that are afflicted with the disease of addiction?

And who really knows who is addicted?

Someone may be drunk, stoned, high or intoxicated,

but that doesn’t mean addiction has come knocking at their door.

There is much more to the disease of addiction.

Families of alcoholics and addicts can certainly tell you in great, 

and sometimes very horrific, detail about more than a little intoxication.

Oh, certainly there are diagnosticians in our medical community that, after matching symptoms and signs to an individual can come pretty darn close, if not right on the bull’s eye, to diagnosing an individual’s addiction.

However, it really is the addicted one, the alcoholic, that truly knows how affected they are by their ‘drink or drug of choice’. (Such a quaint turn of phrase!) And, by extension, knows that they alone are responsible owning their addiction.

In a society where drugs (yes, drugs) and alcohol are socially acceptable in many ways, forms and times, marketers advertise many addictive and addicting products, including nicotine products, shame creates barriers for these folks that they must face 

in order to find sanity and sobriety.

• the shame of being a belligerent, or violent, angry, or mushy, and maybe even psychotic individual or all of the above

• the shame of not knowing how to participate in many forms of celebration without drugs or alcohol

• the shame of being unable to control the effects or amounts of alcohol or drugs

• the shame of being shunned, pitied, disliked, even hated because of intoxicated behaviour.

• the shame of just being and, I’m certain, there is shame as individual as a finger print.

A clamour of voices rises up in great anger and frustration -

‘Well they should be ashamed of themselves! 

Look at what they’ve done to the family, to me, to the children, to the community..................’

So my question is - 

Do we want sobriety for folks so our lives better, 

or so their lives, inside and out, are better?      

And which should come first?

“I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake 

saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next 

day memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.”

~ Amy Winehouse (14 September 1983 - 23 July 2011)

When the Power is On

To admit 

what I think I’m guilty of,

even to myself,

curls me into myself

sends me away from healthy thought and action.

To admit 

what I think I should be ashamed of,

especially to myself,

ties me in knots
sends me away 

from healing behaviour.

~~~~~

Powerless ~

but only in active epilepsy.

when my lights go out - 

I go out ~

I am powerless over everything.

~~~~~

When my lights are on

I have the power 

to learn 

to be present.

aware of my self,

my surroundings,

clear about who I am and 

who I am capable of being.

I am only powerless over the fact of epilepsy.

“What we actually learn, from any given set of circumstances, determines 

whether we become increasingly powerless or more powerful.”

~ Blaine Lee

Author's note:  edited July 25, 2024