It used to be that whenever I would go to therapy, I would sit down on the couch and start crying. Sometimes, to my annoyance, I wasn’t even sure what I was crying for. Just entering a space that was held for me by another, all my holding in, holding up, holding back simply dissolved.
This happened again this week, in a class I was taking about racism and shame. We were going around, talking, and I started crying. It wasn’t shame I was feeling, but relief to be with other people who cared, in a space where I didn’t have to hold myself together.
Dea Parsanishi was talking to us about healthy shame versus traumatic shame, and how to get curious and move into rather than avoid the shame that comes up (with clients, with ourselves).
Dea explained that healthy shame is something we are supposed to feel when we are doing something that is unhelpful or unhealthy. It is experienced in a finite, short amount of time, it is about a behavior, and when we address that behavior, then we are welcomed back into connection / community. Healthy shame motivates us to change.
Traumatic shame is the “I’m bad” feeling. It is the shame of the abuser, or the abusive system that has been put on to us. When we (unwillingingly, unconsciously) take on another’s shame, it dampens our spirit, dampens our ability to defend ourselves or protest, sometimes it gets hidden with deflection, arrogance, defensiveness or rage.
So what happens if we take a few minutes and slow down. Feel into the body. Quiet the brain. Shame is not a cognitive thing. If you take a breath, and bring your awareness inside, do you feel the nausea rising up from your guts? The horror of the right-wing, the genocide in Palestine. Does your body start to shake, or the pressure of tears rise to your eyes? Let it. Shake and cry and vomit it out.
Clear the air of the shame of the genocidal, the war profiteers. Theirs is not your shame to hold.
Welcome your body back. I am serious. Wrap your arms around yourself right now, give yourself a hug and say to your body “Welcome back.” Squeeze your arms, your legs. “Welcome back.” Put each hand gently to your cheeks, cradling your face. “Welcome back.”
Feel the grief or joy of return for a minute or two. And then see how to move from there.