Category: being & becoming

Here’s a thing: buying into these stories of being too much or not enough wastes our time. The more time we spend believing these stories the more time we spend not living the lives we want to live. The more we allow shame to be in charge the less we go out in the world and try and do the things we want to try and do. The more time we spend trying to live up to these made up expectations the less time we spend truly and deeply connecting with each other and ourselves.

If you want to dig into these stories, to unravel all you’ve been told and connect to your body, your spirit, your Self, I’d love to help.

xoxo

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Here’s a thing : Shame wants you to second guess yourself. This includes questioning your memories, your emotions, your thoughts, your choices. Shame wants you to believe that your experiences and feelings about those experiences are invalid.

Shame doesn’t want you to stand in your power, your strength, your light. Again, shame wants you second guessing. Shame reminds you that while you may have accomplished X, you still have so far to go, so don’t celebrate now. Or Shame will make snide comments about how you are “too big for your britches.” Or shame will tell you if you become “too important” you will lose your family, your community.

Shame wants us small and second guessing. Because as we are playing small and second guessing ourselves the status quo can keep on keeping on (Shame and the Status Quo are like besties, dontcha know?). As we are busy questioning our thoughts or decisions or feelings, we *aren’t* doing the things we *want* to do fight off oppression and all the -isms and bigotry. Shame keeps us pretty self-absorbed truth be told. But not at all in any kind of good way. Because what we are absorbing is self-loathing and self-hate.

One of the many ways to fight Shame is to stop playing small; to stand firmly in our lineage – be that education, experience, knowledge. To stand firm in our power – knowing and acting on our sense of agency, for ourselves and others. To stop “playing nice” and “getting along to get along.”

Sometimes though we don’t know how to get there. The shame runs deep. It is a real thing. It lives in our bodies, our minds and our spirits. And it’s everywhere. There isn’t a single thing in the world we can do that doesn’t have a shame message attached to it to some degree or another.

If you want, I’m here to help.

xoxo

(Did you enjoy reading this? If so, I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter. It comes out ever Saturday night and is filled with goodness and often some righteous rage. You can learn more and subscribe right here.)

So here’s a thing: Shame can keep us so occupied with our own stories of too much, not enough, deserving and worthiness and the long lists of shoulds that we don’t realize when we are spreading shame out to other people. In fact, often when we are judging another person, the “flaws” we see in them are actually “flaws” within ourselves that we can’t acknowledge.

Shame is smart and it’s a trickster. It wants us doing its work for it. And so, with the judging and shaming and “knowing better” we are doing just that, while shame sits back and has a cold one.

Shame also shows up in places we wouldn’t expect. Like when we give unsolicited advice. Or when we tell people to look on the bright side or find the silver lining, and totally disregard their experience and feelings. Shame can even be hiding around gratitude, because there is so much we “should” be thankful for, and maybe we simply don’t feel thankful at all.

Shame shows up when we compare. We either feed our own Shame Beasts (oh that person has it so much worse, I shouldn’t feel as bad as I do about my life and therefore my feelings aren’t important or valid) or we feed the Shame Beasts of others (you think You have it bad? Let me tell you about ME! and therefore invalidate the other person’s experiences and feelings).

Shame is the worst kind of Mean Girl. It keeps us small and keeps us wounding and re-wounding ourselves and others.

Let’s fight off this beast. For ourselves, and those we love.

xoxo

(Did you enjoy reading this? If so, I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter. It comes out ever Saturday night and is filled with goodness and often some righteous rage. You can learn more and subscribe right here.)

So here’s a thing… The other week in my weekly love letter I changed a section that used to be called Links of Interest to Rebellious Woman I Adore. The purpose of that section has always been to introduce other women’s thoughts and work to my readers, and that weekend as I was writing the letter it just felt it was time to name the section what I’ve always intended it to be:: a way for us all to become connected and to learn from each other.

I’ve been told by some marketing “gurus” (no one I am currently working with) that putting links to anything that isn’t on my personal site would be detrimental to my work. That it is a big no-no to share the work of my “competition” (notice the quotes). That sharing others words or classes or products would detract from my own.

This advice has always felt wrong to me. It it counter to everything I believe about healing and connection and revolution and loving ourselves and shifting the paradigm. So, against the advice of “experts” I followed my gut and heart and values.

Because here’s a thing: The women I share are not my “competition.” They are my COMRADES. They are my sisters in shaking up the status quo and burning all these bullshit messages and ways of being down.

I believe there are a thousand million different ways to heal our wounds. My work is only one of those ways. And it may or may not work for any given person on any given day in any given moment.

My work, my *life,* is dedicated to healing wounding. To guiding each of us to stand taller and feel comfortable in our own skin (because it really is illegal to wear someone else’s). To love our Self and give ourselves compassion and respect.

I cannot do this work alone. I cannot change our patriarchal cultural training by myself. So I seek out other women who also do this work, in their way, with their voice. And when I find them and get to know them and believe in them and their work, I will shout their names from the rooftops for everyone to hear and know and explore.

We are all in this together. Not a one of us can burn all this shit down by ourselves, AND when we start putting each of our own individual sparks together, the fires will ROAR.

Let me repeat:: Other women are not my competition (nor yours). They are my COMRADES and TOGETHER we will burn it all down and rebuild from the rubble and ashes.

xoxo

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Here’s a thing :: This path, the path of standing in our Light, of embracing fully who we are, it isn’t easy. It can be heartbreaking. And sometimes it can be very lonely. But we aren’t alone. We only need to reach out and connect to the people who are doing the same thing: standing in their light, embracing who they are. Because sometimes we find our people this way. They don’t replace the people who broke our hearts by trying to hold us down; instead they are new people who help us build anew from our own rubble and ashes and become stronger and brighter than we ever were before.

Shame would have us believing that it is far more important to play small, to be lonely, to not seek out our people. That it’s “safer.” I bought into this story for a long time. What if they laugh at me? What if they think I’m/my work is dumb? What if they don’t want or need another another friend/collaborator/comrade?

You know what? No a single one of the women I have reached out to, not a one of them, have laughed at me or told me my work is worthless or that they don’t need another friend. Every single one of these women have embraced me in their ways. And I am safer now, standing next to them and in my own light than ever before.

xoxo

(Did you enjoy this? If so, I invite you to sign up for my weekly love letter. It comes out every Saturday night and is filled with all kinds of goodies. You can subscribe right over here. )