This week I want to write a quick and simple thank you post. Thank you to everyone who read last week’s newsletter. Thank you to those who sent me messages of support. Thank you to those who didn’t send messages of shame! Thank you to everyone who didn’t unsubscribe, and to those who did subscribe to read more from me.
It was an emotional week for me, but also a very regular, boring week and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. I do feel lighter and a degree of freedom that I didn’t before. I exposed what I consider to be the worst, most shameful and embarrassing parts of me and my life and I was embraced. May we all experience that kind of love and acceptance.
I don’t believe this is the end of my relationship with shame. Like I’ve written many times before, our culture is seeped with it. Embracing myself and my personal gifts to the world is a daily practice and one I intend to keep. But I know myself well enough to know I will stumble along the way and pay attention to the voices of shame more than will be good for me. I will fail to recognize the positive choices I make in a day and I will instead believe I should change myself to be worthy of love. And that’s okay. Being a human is hard and it’s okay to fail. Anyone who says otherwise just doesn’t want me to grow.
On Tuesday night I attended a workshop over Zoom on craftivism with Shannon Downey, aka Badass Cross Stitch. It was great in many ways, one of which was her emphasis on celebrating our successes. She recommended we make Yay Me! flags and wave them when we are proud of ourselves. This fit in so perfectly with my current goals, that I made one immediately. I had a brief thought of using a ruler to make the lines of my lettering perfect, but instead I wanted imperfect lines to remind myself I can be proud of imperfect actions. The “pole” of my little flag is made from a pen I used up writing my morning pages - 3 pages of hand-written journaling every morning. It can be hard to start every day clearing my mind of its thoughts, but the practice helps me figure out myself and my needs and wants and I am grateful for getting back into the practice. I will now remind myself of that gratitude every time I wave my flag.
The other positive outcome from sharing my shame to banish my shame, is that I have been more creative. I brought out a novel idea I started and abandoned last year and I’ve been writing it every day. This time I’m really optimistic that I will finish it. If I’m honest, even when I started it last year, I let my shaming voice take up so much of the conversation that I never really felt confident in my ability to continue to completion. This year I’m confident. It’s a good idea and I’m enjoying creating the story and characters. It’s not a book that everyone will enjoy, but I think for a certain group of people, they will love it and appreciate its existence. And if I’m wrong about that, I will love it and appreciate it and that’s good enough for me.