Outrageously YOU Friday as the news of the attacks in Paris unfolded, I had a choice: throw out the series and the talks and prepare to talk about peace or somehow integrate what happens in the world outside us with our series on what is within us. So, I chose the latter. And at some point I will explain my attire. Let s begin. We have been talking about living our best lives, our authentic selves, our whole hearted life. Using Brene Brown s books we have talked about vulnerability and connection. We have touched on shame. We have talked about 6 characteristics of whole hearted living: authenticity, creativity, intuition, resilience, stillness and self-compassion. We have talked about our sabotaging behavior of perfectionism, numbing, comparison, anxiety, need to be certain, and concern with what people think of us. I want to begin today with a little exploration of where shame comes from. Is it normal? Is it actually healthy? Brown has been defining shame as an excruciatingly painful experience of ourselves as broken, unworthy and not belonging. We go to great lengths to avoid pain and shame is not an exception. But shame is not our true nature. We are not born knowing ourselves as broken. That is why most of us are drawn to babies: they are just love with no filter of shame or judgment. So where does shame come from? I discerned three sources and this is not from Brown s work directly. So bear with me as I go out on the limb. First of all, traumatic events can be internalized as a sense of brokenness within. Violence, abuse, rape, and war can leave us with a sense that something is wrong with us: we are now broken. Second, we can be taught that certain things we do, behaviors we have, are evidence that something is broken within us. This is how organized religions have operated in the past to maintain control of behavior. If you have impure thoughts, if you steal, if you drink, if you dance, and my favorite, if you skip church it is evidence that you are broken and you should feel shame. Third, we can be told by our social order, religious teaching, or repeated experiences, that some aspect of our being is evidence we are broken or less than whole and there is shame in who we are. Original sin theory says just being human is a source of shame unless you are saved. Brokenness is how oppression works: your race, your ethnicity, your gender identification, sexual orientation, and your physical and mental abilities are evidence your very essence is broken and less than. There is no way you can be saved from this. You are doomed to a life of shame. 1
None of this is true or healthy! We are not broken and believing we are is not healthy. Brown brings up two other emotions we sometimes say in the same breath with shame: guilt and remorse. Let me try to explain the differences. Shame tells us, I did something wrong because there is something wrong IN me. I am broken and unworthy. Guilt tells us, what I did is wrong. I made a bad choice and I feel bad. Remorse goes a little further and says, what I did is wrong and I feel bad and wish I could make it better. Brown points out that Guilt and Remorse can be helpful in getting us to notice our actions and move in a different direction. We are able to change direction because we are able to claim the power of our vulnerability and wholeness. Brown also points out that people who are unable to experience guilt and remorse do have some psychological challenges. From personal experience, I know this is a characteristic of Reactive Attachment Disorder. Infant trauma, usually emotional neglect, affects very early neurodevelopment, and these individuals can intellectually know what is acceptable and unacceptable but they don t experience guilt when they act unacceptably. Even when they cause pain in others, they don t experience guilt because they are missing that compass that many of us use. I would not guess how many people in prison might have Reactive Attachment Disorder. This becomes an organic issue, not easily reshaped to give these individuals the internal motivation for healthy choices. If shame is learned and unhealthy, how do we get out of shame? Brown has some steps and we have talked about the ability to notice our shame triggers; engage in self-compassion and gentle self-talk; connect with others to bring light to our feelings; and own and share our stories. But here is my bottom line: Shame is believing a lie and so the way out is to claim the Truth. Capital T Truth. Truth of our being Truth. I am worthy, I am whole, I am unbroken. I am that I AM. I am a spiritual being having a human experience. Therefore! What happens to me cannot damage the essence of my being. What I do, even mistakes I make, is not evidence my essence is damaged. There is nothing about my physical being that is evidence my essence is less than whole. Affirm for yourself: I have emotions and thoughts I am NOT my emotions and thoughts. I accept my humanity and draw upon, connect with my Divinity. I am not what happens to me I am what I choose to become. Claim your spiritual and emotional wholeness. Brown says Whole Hearted people are shame resilient because they believe they are worthy and whole. They live with open hearts and experience love because they believe they are worthy of love. It doesn t mean they never experience a moment of shame, they just 2
let the moment pass and re-center. What does any of this have to do with Paris? Claiming our Truth is a healthy way out of shame, including shame arising from oppression by a dominant group. Brown s steps are a healthy way out of shame. Do we always take the healthy way out? NO. Sometimes we are angry and we decide that if I feel bad because of your dominance, the way to feel better is to dominate you. I can purge my pain and shame through violence. We see it on the streets of our cities; in our families and increasingly in the acts of terrorists. Have these groups been oppressed? Undeniably. Have others told individuals to feel bad about themselves because of their race, religion or their ethnicity? Yes. Is violence really going to allow anyone to release and heal the shame? Is violence going to change our beliefs about diversity and increase our acceptance of our diverse, collective humanity? Not ever. Could we use the happenings in our world as a catalyst for change and a sign of the urgency of discovering whole hearted living? Yes. Does what we do with our lives make a difference? Yes. Let s stay with what we do. One of the characteristics reported by people Brown calls whole hearted living is the belief that they have meaningful work. Our culture, as we have discussed before, is very focused on our work or employment or way we spend our time. Each individual has his or her own interpretation of meaningful but in general it involves feeling I am using my gifts in the world. By our meaning, we have claimed we have gifts and in sharing these gifts, we connect with our sense of spirituality. Using our gifts connects us with Source. Brown discovered that it is not benign or just kind of sad when we feel we are not using our gifts we are frustrated, conflicted and unhappy when we feel we are squandering the gifts we ve been given. So if it is that important to us, what gets in the way of developing meaningful work? Our sabotaging self-doubt. And a lot of de-valuing our gifts. How does this show up? Any of these sound familiar? I don t really have any gifts. Nothing I do is very special. Oh this? This is not my work, it s just a hobby. I could never make a living doing this. To be successful, it should make money. Doing this is not really valuable. I have a family to support, I can t waste my time doing this. These are the thoughts of self-doubt and de-valuing. Stop believing: you have no gifts or that what you do is not meaningful or that there is no outlet for your gifts. I love this concept of slash/careers. We are not one dimensional people. I am not referring to multi-tasking but multiple gifts. The physician who paints; the accountant who plays saxophone; the stay at home parent who runs an online business; the retired mechanic who teaches 3
at risk kids to read. We discount what we do and we de-value our gifts and then feel sad that we don t have meaningful work. We do have gifts and meaningful work! We just need to claim it. When I was 14, I wanted to be a writer. I was admonished that writers don t make money, that I was too smart to be a writer it was a waste of my gifts to be a writer, and writing was just too hard to make a living at. So first I went into science and then law. I was making a difference and yet, I had these gifts. This is the discontent of feeling you aren t sharing your gifts. Now, if I list my work I would say I am a minister slash teacher slash writer. It has taken me awhile to claim writer because it doesn t pay the bills, it is not all I do, yet it is meaningful work for me. It arouses a sense of the flow of my divinity out into the world. Each of the things I list has a meaning for me. One solid step in developing your meaningful work characteristic: make your own work list with the slashes. Don t limit yourself. Don t discount and devalue what you do. Include things you d like to do more. Reflect on your list. Are there things on the list you discount or devalue? What do you really claim as your gifts? What gives work meaning in your interpretation? If we need meaningful work in whole hearted living, we also need laughter, song and dance! Let me ask you: who has friends who snort when they laugh? Who has watched the videos of infants with that infectious giggle? Who has been afraid to laugh out loud because of what others might think? Laughter releases tension and lifts us up. It physically triggers the release of those feel good endorphins. Laughter can heal us and bond us to one another. Healthy laughter should not depend on putting anyone down or demeaning anyone. Singing causes us to breathe, always a good thing. It improves circulation and posture. It also releases endorphins; promotes a feeling of well-being; energizes and comforts us. Music has been a proven connector in those with dementia and mental illness. Dancing is also healthy. It improves circulation, muscle tone and general fitness. It strengthens bones and also lifts our spirits with those endorphins. The quote that Brown uses to begin the chapter on this characteristic also raises the sabotaging behavior. Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you have never been hurt and live like it s heaven on earth. What gets in the way of living whole hearted with laughter, song 4
and dance is the concern about whether or not we look or sound cool; whether or not we appear to be in control. Bob Sima talked about dying with the music in us. Because we didn t think it was cool to sing. We worried about judgment. If you were here last week or read the Wed email, you know I have invited you out of your comfort zone. I invited you to dress as the true, outrageously authentic YOU. Not the Joe Cool You. Not the imitation of some star or person you admire. Just you. Maybe the laughing, dancing, singing you. We all need to laugh. We all have music that connects us to Spirit, to our best selves, to fun and to healing. Most of us find expression and health in movement. When we allow ourselves to laugh and sing and dance. So what is my attire about? From birth to 7, I was pretty happy as I recall and I enjoyed singing and dancing and laughing. When my mom divorced and remarried I started getting very different messages. First, I got the message that I was broken and I didn t fit in. I never would. But the best I could do was to stop getting attention. If I sang or danced or excelled, I was showing off and I was punished. Now this put me in a bit of a dilemma. I am so different, people watch me and stare and frankly point and sometimes laugh. Growing up, I was told repeatedly I was TOO smart, too loud, too intense and too opinionated. I was discouraged from singing, from dancing and from being funny. It has taken me a while to figure out that I am naturally a sparkly person. It is not attention-seeking, I get enough of that. I am not willing to make myself less so others feel more comfortable. I was not allowed to wear pink because I had red hair and pink clashes with red. I love pink. Lots of shades of it. And whether it is cool or not; whether it is fashionable or not, I wear pink. And I let my light shine. I am a sparkly person. One solid step in allowing more laughter, song and dance into your life: make a playlist of the music that make you feel like you and a playlist of the music that makes you dance. Play the music. Dance. Some of the songs might connect you to Spirit. Some of the music might comfort you. The people of Paris are singing their national anthem, fearlessly in the street. For them, it is a song of courage and identity and comfort and resilience. Some of your music might just be silly. Let your music play and dance. Don t worry about being cool, fitting in, being judged. Just be the outrageously authentic you! See how that feels. Next week we end our series. We end with Gratitude and Rest and Play. What could get in the way of that? We ll talk about FOMO! See you Next Sunday! 5