shame on shame

Shame is a soul eating emotion.”

                      Carl Gustav Jung

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

                      Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me

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It sneaks up on you, just like rancid tweet

A memory pops into your head

Of one of “those” moments when you made a really bad choice

Maybe it is more than a moment

Sometimes the journey through the valley takes time

and the climb out is painful and slow

Or perhaps it is not a sneak attack

Perhaps someone who has seen you, experienced you at your worst

Attacks

Hitting you over the head with a verbal 2X4

Leaving you staggering

And there it is

Shame

It does not matter how far in your past

the offense occurred

Sometimes it does not matter how egregious the ‘sin’

Your head gets noisy

It is as if it is full of 100 TV’s

All turned on

All tuned in to horror shows

And then the voices come

Not from that proverbial committee

But from a mental Supreme Court, ready and willing to

Confirm your guilt

That is when your sympathetic nervous goes berserk

When you heart pounds

And your stomach clenches

And you forget, at least for a moment,

Grace

That is when all the changes you have worked for

All the insights you have gained

Seem to slide inexorably into the ooze and slime and old decay

That is when the pain comes

Not just the mental, emotional, spiritual pain

That comes when you own your errors and flaws

But the physical pain that comes

When your self induced trauma makes itself know in your head

Your neck, your back

Your bowls

We carry so much hidden inside us

All those things unresolved, unforgiven, unreleased

That lurk in our bodies and our minds

Ready

With just the slightest cue

To emerge

And there we are,

Back in the valley of death

But grace is a thing

God’s love is real

And with God there are always fresh starts and new endings

Yes, you will rage against grace

Yes, others will refuse to let you change (they will forever see you the same old way)

Yes, you will have to go through this again

And again

And again

Paul had his thorn

I have my points of woundedness and pain

So do you (I suspect)

But always, always

God is there

Making all things new

And so as our emotional and spiritual alarms blare forth

We can stop

And breathe (and stimulate that vagus nerve)

And we can remember grace

And we can wish ourselves well

In the east they learned

To use metta phrases (loving kindness phrases)

To with themselves well, and others too

This is where I go in my darker moment
I breathe

I remember God’s love

And then I repeat the phrases

The classics?

 May I be happy.

May I be at peace.

May I live with ease.

May I be free from suffering.

I wish those I think I have harmed the same thing

I wish the name callers the same thing

I wish my loved ones the same thing

I wish my enemies the same thing

Stop

Breathe

Immerse yourself in kindness

Then carry on