Shame, Shame, no SHINE! SHINE! yes

Shame is a corker.

It corks up all the frustration, rage, despair, longing and our ability to reach out, with a vacuum seal so tight, that no motion is possible toward communication of how really sucky we feel inside.

Shame sucks.

It sucks so much of our energy that it’s sometimes hard to do a day without feeling totally exhausted.

Shame comes in a variety of equally sucky shades.

There’s what we typically think of as social shame: that which our culture dictates as taboo, we are shamed out of doing early in life. “Don’t put money in your mouth, it’s DIRTY!” “Don’t run in the street (insert slap or rough pull of the child’s arm here), you’ll get killed!” “Don’t hit your brother/sister!” (Hopefully, you didn’t insert slap or rough pull of your arm here!)

Then, there’s physiological shame. When something feels life-threatening, and if fight or flight is not an option, we go into freeze. Freeze is the third of three graces with which all mammals are born. The freeze fills us with endorphins, opiate-like pain killers, and separates our mind from our body - so we can’t feel the impact of death. If we don’t die, we’re sometimes left with a feeling of betrayal - that our body didn’t fight back or run away; that our body failed us in some way. This is physiologic shame.

Both varieties can linger longer than we’d like and make us feel less-than; as if we did something wrong.

At three, I showed up at nursery school without undies. We were to take our naps wearing only our underwear. I still remember, as I slowly removed my turquoise pedal-pushers with the white piping around the pockets, the shame of being “different than” all the other kids at Tainer Town in Glendale. I thought there was something terribly wrong with me. (This unresolved social shaming colored my entire childhood and adolescence.) It would have been lovely to have a conversation about that... about why my dad took me to school without the appropriate outfit, and about a need for back-up supplies so it would be no big deal.

Being too little or not strong enough to fight or run away from danger can leave us with unresolved physiologic shame. If the imprint is not resolved, it can become our default setting so that, when faced with future threatening events, even if we’re big enough and strong enough to protect ourselves, we may resort to the familiar freeze state and become a “deer in headlights” - frozen in place. 

Dissociation is a good thing when it helps us survive horrific events. It's not so useful when it becomes our default setting.

I spent many years of my adult life trying to come back into my body. I discovered I had a polished trap-door at the top of my head. If anything at all felt the least bit threatening, I’d be up and out of my body in a flash. It took years of “circling the field” before I could come in for a landing. Dance helped. Yoga helped. Bodywork helped. Model Mugging (self-defense course for women), and trauma resolution work helped. Mostly, I’m in my body these days and it feels like a safe place to be.

The shame of it is that shame inhibits the flow of our life force. It keeps us from expressing ourselves in myriad creative ways that are our birth-right. The world loses out when we are stuck in shame.

Maryann Williamson’s words, which Nelson Mandela spoke at his inaugural address, ring true:

• "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

May Shine Triumph over Shame!

Cringe Factor and Crutches

The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get. So many writing projects; so little time.

Mid-week offering: Wednesday Muse...

Having written about a particularly painful incident from my past, I’m getting physiological symptoms that baffle and bemuse me.

Could cellular memory REALLY recreate the pain I experienced at five, when my brother pressed the tip of our father’s African spear into my butt? Is this giant varicose vein in my anus (AKA hemorrhoid) simply a protest march of organizing cells remembering that day? Or is it coincidence? What ever it is, it’s a pain in the ass.

It has happened before. I’ve had vaginal pain within days of writing about incest and gang-rape. The writing seems to be potent, and effective at rubbing the noses of the afflicted cells in the mess all over again. Shame is a factor. I feel the cringe in my body as I commit to the page, where it may be visible to the world, these horrific events through which I’m now glad I lived, but I would rather have died back then, and often wished I had. 

Degradation is just that. It’s ICKY! 

Another writer I know has committed to recording in first person, present tense, the events of her youth. The times they were a troubling in those turbulent ‘60’s.  We’re both glad we made it through the “free love” movement which ended up costing us and many of our sisters a whole lot - including great big chunks of our self esteem.

When using Somatic Experiencing, (one of the modalities I use with my clients), we take a post-card from the past, bring it into the present moment to heal, and differentiate THEN from NOW. Our sweet flesh doesn’t know the difference between the cringe we feel when thinking about the past, from the initial insult to our innocent bodies. Affirming the here and now as relatively safe, and swinging our attention between the brace of the past and the relative ease of the present moment can go a long way toward draining away the charge of survival energies we’ve carried in our nervous system since those long ago events unfolded. Back then, our body got all dressed up with adrenaline to fight back or run away from harm, but didn’t get a chance to complete the moves that might have saved us. 

“Take THAT,” our present day elbow says, smashing the remembered nose of a perpetrator. 

“BAM!” says the current knee which catches the crotch of the historical would-be perp. 

It’s like the fisherman’s story, “You should see the one that got away!!

All that charge is in the muscles waiting for the opportunity to complete the moves. Survival energies are huge in the room. We welcome them in. Normalizing them can be tricky, because who would want to court those very discomforting big feelings? Who in her right mind would WANT to feel that much charge? It’s ever so much more comfortable to shush and squash them with chocolate or... (name your drug of choice). 

We don't have to like it. It won't be comfortable. Leaving the brace in the body - the charge in the muscles to fester - can lead to all sorts of less manageable discomforts - and even disease processes. The ACE Study points to some of the disease processes linked to adverse childhood experiences.*

Here’s the thing: Everyone has a crutch. Some crutches are easier on the body and even prized by our culture than others, ie: Workaholism vs a heroin addiction. Whatever helps us to stand up in the morning and gets us through the day is fair game. Over time, it would be ideal to choose crutches that leave fewer scars - on us and on our loved ones.

One of my teachers says:

     "You are forced to grow, to see things you      

     were trying to avoid seeing, and to know

     yourself more and more deeply. You can

     do this willingly, or you can kick and  

     scream all the way."

                  ---Swami Nirmalananda

My current interest is in trying to find the least excruciating path of healing for myself and for my clients. Titrated dips into the acid bath seem doable. Maybe I’ll write just a little bit at a time.

* Adverse Childhood Experiences (the ACE Study) is described in Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease by Robin Karr-Morse with Meredith S. Wiley

Buto: Cobra Goddess

“Why am I so cold, Chris?”

My own icy hands chill my belly through my summer cotton blouse. I feel Mr. Mew, Chris’s cat on my shin bones, but there’s no warmth, only pressure.

“Sometimes, astral travel can do that. You’ll warm up when you’re all the way back in, Melinda.”

“What a trip!”

I have been following a mentor/guide who presented herself to me in this healing session. I’ve been working with Chris once a week since February, when flash-backs began to happen. She does laying-on-of-hands healing and shamanic journey work. My goal is to clear the effects of growing up with my dad. 

In this journey, a cobra goddess with gigantic wings protects me from my pursuer - holding me with one wing, and barring the chamber door against him with the other. 

When our father, who aren’t in heaven, Howard was his name, surfaces in a fountain pool coming toward me like a shark as I bathe, this winged goddess opens her cobra mouth so wide I can see all the way back to the inside of her tail. She turns and bites off his penis. The pool turns crimson. I see him sinking. I reach the side of the pool and am lifted by this cobra goddess and put gently onto a soft mat. The blood of my father has not soiled me

Sitting at my head, Chris asks me to survey the scene and determine how the cobras know who is friend or foe. Egyptians keep them as protection from their enemy, the Hittites. 

I am by a fountain pool where I see women and children bathing. There are four cobra baskets in the corners of this temple pool area. I see a nursing mother approach one of the reed baskets, kneel, and tap on the marble floor. A cobra emerges from deep within the coiled container, undulating side to side like seaweed in an ocean current. The movement is hypnotizing. This is when I first notice how very cold I am, back on Chris's healing cot, but I continue to watch the vision in fascination as the woman manipulates her breast to squirt some of her milk into the open mouth of the snake. She repeats this action at each of the baskets.

Chris and I surmise that the ritual gives the deadly protectors the genetic imprint of the race they are to defend unto death. Hittites “smell and taste” differently from Egyptians.

“Here, sit up and have some hot tea.”

Chris has moved to my feet.

I’m stiff, and still cold, but manage to sit up. Mr. Mew’s sharp claws register his complaint as my shins slide apart with the effort of coming back and sitting up. 

“Ouch!” 

Strong sensation does help me come back.

“Thanks... I think, Mr. Mew!”

Chris and I laugh. Mr. Mew looks bored, yawns, and jumps off the massage table onto the carpet with a soft thump.

As is our routine, we move to the couches and I wrap up in the soft ochre blanket which was around me on the table. I'm clutching my tea cup to my breast bone trying to warm up. It’s 95 degrees outside. Inside, I’m still shivering with cold.

After about ten minutes, I am warming up.

We chat about this and that, but not about the content of the session. I make out a check and hug her good bye until next Tuesday.

Scrambled Legs

On remembering our meeting, second day of ‘72, 

Says he, “Your legs went to Pittsburg, that’s why I married you”

The shape comes from my father, varicosities perhaps my mom 

To show their best advantage now, opaque leggings are the bomb

I found some in bright colors: orange, purple and vibrant teal

But, at 60 something, is it legit to forget the look, and love the feel?

They’re stretchy and they’re clingy like wearing a soft cloud

But do they make me look too fat?  Too colorful or loud?

Elephants are on my favorites - black and white with trunks that curl 

Geometric shapes on another pair; and some with a mustache twirl

At sixty five and a week, I am officially old

I bought a cart to roll to where the farmer’s wares are sold.

Today, I rolled it all the way to the market, P.O. and T. Joe’s

Some one said, “I like your leggings...” be nice to old ladies with great hose

You never know whom you’ll meet while walking in this town 

Darn the cart, It picks up mud, and it slows me down

This morning’s outing started well, I put the cart under my arm

And strode full stride and filled it full with veggies from the farm

Somehow the trip back home was slow. The cart so awfully full,

It was all I could do to use my legs and quivering arms to pull

My legs got scrambled in a bush the cart teetered on the curb

Barely righting it, I cursed out loud the old familiar verb

For someone with white hair, wild leggings lend some flair

If you should see me on a Sunday with my cart, don’t stare

It might make me self-conscious, make me nervous, shy, and trip

If I do, my legs might scramble, I don’t want the tights to rip.

So, pass me by  and know that I will keep experimentin’

To find the look and feel that fits and keeps my honey smitten.

Eligibility

Medi-WHAT??

Obama, should I care,

While crisp October is in the air?

Got Health Net?

No, not yet... Spring is in my heart and step

At sixty five, I’m still alive

My long term plan? Just Jump and Jive!

Don’t worry me like that busy ol’ ant

My grasshopper’s on a fiddling rant!

“Easy Peasy,” my friends all say,

“Just go on line and stay all day.”

Filing forms is not my thing,

I just want to dance and sing

Leaves turn red; the sun will set.

Hey, don’t rush me, I ain’t dead yet!