I was present at a training today in which I was deeply convicted about a few things and I needed an outlet to be able to process the wrestling within me.
Today I went to a training on Shame. I always appreciate gleaning wisdom from those more experienced than myself and was looking forward to the topic to help me help others. Little did I know how much this whole topic would affect me.
While guilt says what I did was wrong, shame says I am what is wrong. My life has been wrought with shame at times. Now, just to be clear, we would never want to get rid of all shame, because people without shame as a deterrent are what we call either psychotic or a sociopath. However, I feel like a lot of my life has been characterized by shame. I have wondered if I was enough, or if I was loved outside of how I behaved. Maybe, if I'd done enough wrong things people wouldn't love me. So I have strived for a lot of my life to be what others have needed me to be, on top of holding myself to incredibly high standards. It has kept me from taking risks because I feared failure deep in my soul. What if I wasn't enough? What if I didn't get it? What if I failed? I am not sufficient for this task.
I remember a lot of these internal messages for a lot of my life. I, therefore, have not risked a lot throughout my life unless I was confident I could handle whatever would come my way. One example of a way I did risk was I traveled a lot and learned other languages because I thought it was fun and I could do it. In fact, I always kinda joked I liked getting lost in new cities because I knew I would find my way back to where I need to be eventually. I had confidence that I was capable of handling whatever came in these new places, so it didn't bother me.
But it was common in my life for most of what I did to be a calculated risk because I needed to believe I was enough to face the challenges that may come. I used to write this off to a lack of self-confidence, but after the talk today, I think it may be much deeper than that.
Shame is the deeply-seated fear of disconnection (Brown, 2012). We were made for connection with other humans, this is both biblical and practical wisdom. We know from studies of Scripture and neurobiological research that our brains and bodies were made for connection with others. When connection is lacking, when we feel lost and alone, we reach out for connection. This can be to self, other, truth or person of God.
The thing about having REAL and LASTING connection is that you have to make yourself able to be seen. This is called, vulnerability, and it is not easy and often is avoided. See this link for Brene Brown's short TED talk on this subject, it could be very impactful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o
When we sense or fear a loss of connection, shame comes on quickly. You can see this in a small child who reaches their hands up to an adult and being told verbally or nonverbally "no," they hang their head and lose all facial expression. This happens for adults as well in relationship with others, it just isn't physically seen most of the time (like reaching out physically, it's often nonverbal or with words) When we reach for the other and perceive they are not there or are unresponsive, a sense of shame will swoop in quickly.
Shame is highly correlated with all sorts of human struggles. The ones that weigh on me today are my tendencies toward perfectionism as well as my emotional eating. I've known for a long time that I struggle with both of these. But today in training, Dr. Green talked about how perfectionism is actually reaching out for a connection. Once you connect with a goal, you move to the next highest goal because there is a felt need to "strive" toward connection, once the goal is completed, the fear of not connecting again means that you move to the next goal to "connect" again. If you stop striving, you fear that you stop connecting. And then, you have to get a bigger goal to give you the same "calming of the connection need" affect...you need a higher "high." This has been the story of so much of my life, and I have NEVER seen it as a fear of losing connection. But honestly, it feels like I know it's true, in my heart of hearts. While I'm becoming educated in things like this for my line of work, this is new information for me and I'm realizing that I need movement from my head knowledge to my heart.
The other thing was, as soon as I felt the stress of dealing with the above named issue, I started to crave sugar, specifically the donuts on the table at this meeting. All of a sudden I realized, when I'm in fear, I'm reaching out for something to console me...WAIT...I'M REACHING FOR CONNECTION, AGAIN! It was like this huge light bulb, these two hang ups have been an attempt at establishing connection with something when I fear I am not enough, or the "worthiness factor" as Brene Brown (2012) puts it...
I am scared to death that I'm not worthy of love and that I have to either fight to get it (perfectionism) or I need to just "feel better" (emotional eating). I'm realizing that I reach out for these tangible things the more disconnected I feel from myself, other, truth or God.
This is potentially life changing for me. To realize that in the moments where I'm striving the hardest for the next goal or craving whatever food at whatever time, instead of asking "what's wrong with me?" I need to ask, "Why am I feeling so disconnected? What can I do? Who can I reach out to instead of that donut?"
I honestly don't know where to go or what to do next. But I feel like this may have opened up some huge areas for me to explore. I believe at this point, I'm going to work on figuring out a contingency plan for moments where I feel almost obsessive about goals or about food (maybe contacting my husband or a friend via text, etc.), knowing now that reestablishing connection could very much help in these moments.
At any rate, this is me. This is vulnerability. I may appear strong on the outside, but I need to learn that it's okay to not be okay and surround myself with people who are also okay with me not being okay. For now, this is what I know and I'm praying I can start making changes.
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