The soft underbelly

I just finished reading a post by my friend and fellow-blogger Ellie at One Crafty Mother, a post which has spurred me to talk about something that I don't often discuss. Especially not in a public forum.

Here is her challenge:

I want to issue you a challenge.  I want you to think of a moment, or period in your life (maybe it's still happening - even better) where you were feeling shame and vulnerability.  There is a difference between shame and guilt - just to clarify - shame is feeling badly about who you are, guilt is feeling badly for something you've done.   Vulnerability is that feeling we have when we've placed too much power in the opinions of others (oh, if they only knew how _______ I am) and shame and vulnerability feed off each other in very toxic ways.

Once you've identified a time when you have (or are) experiencing shame and vulnerability (almost always accompanied by their evil cousin fear) - I want you to write about it.  If you don't have a blog, crack out pen and paper, or a word document, and just let it pour out.  Try, if you, can, to write about it in narrative form.  Close your eyes, picture yourself in that moment, or in that period of your life, and write it like a story.  Tell the truth, every part of it, especially the little nuggets of shame, fear or guilt you've mentally edited out because thinking about them makes you feel small.

Talk about your inner shame dialogue; what did it tell you? How did it make you feel?  Writing about it - seeing your words out there - will take a lot of the power out of what is, essentially, holding you hostage.  I promise.

I must admit I'm a little daunted.  Especially because the first thing that popped into my head was something that I'm still going through and which I don't see any way out of except through it.  (Wow. That sounds familiar.)  But ... there's something that resonates in me with this concept - that truth makes people free, even if it's not pretty. That ugly things like shame and evil lose their power when brought into the light, when their soft underbelly is exposed.  

So ... here goes.

Many of you know that last fall, I e-published a book about my journey from the bondage of control-freaking and door-mat-itis into a lifestyle of freedom, passion, and purpose. It was a huge deal for me to have made the journey, and I wanted to write about it! 

The response I've received has been rather sporadic, actually - definitely not what I had hoped.  To be sure, I didn't expect to make much money from it; it was something that I wanted to do so that if even one person is helped by it, then it would be worth it. But I had thought I would receive just a smidgen more recognition than the large round of indifference I've gotten.  

Except from one quarter: my birth family and extended family, and anyone who is friends with them.  

For, you see, I did mention a couple of members of my family-of-origin in the book a couple of times.  I did so to highlight the "before" picture and some of the things I went through to be free of the things certain people did and said to me: things which scarred me my whole life long.  I took great care not to make that the focus, though.  I wanted to talk about the "unwrapping" that happened as a result of a day-by-day relationship with God, with myself, and finally with others.  (For more information on the book, see my "About Me" page.)

But by talking about their part in it even once, I broke the cardinal rule that was hammered into my psyche as a child: "What happens here STAYS here - we don't talk about it outside these four walls." 

I found this photo at THIS SITE

The truth about my childhood has always been a source of great shame for me.  I always thought - until I was well into my forties - that if anyone knew that I was abused as a child, they'd not want to have anything to do with me.  I'd lose everything.  Fear had me by the throat.  I thought people would blame me.  I thought that my family would disown me.  I thought that I would never be able to look anyone in the eye again.

But for the most part, people outside of my birth family have been kind, if not just tolerant. And I've experienced a great deal of healing from those traumatic experiences.

Yet, I am still ashamed.  Not for the horrors of what happened to me - God has healed me from that shame - but for telling the truth.  Ashamed for (even though it is the last thing I intended) appearing to be disloyal, ungrateful, vindictive.  For exposing the deception and no longer keeping "our little secret." For being honest ... and being called a liar. For having my motives judged and for not being able to explain to their satisfaction why I would cast such a shadow on the reputation of someone who - to friends and family - is the closest thing to a saint that they've ever seen.  

I wish I could say that it's been resolved. That would be nice, nice and pretty, all tied up in a bow and a "wonderful testimony."  But it hasn't.  This is a process.  I struggle with these feelings of shame, of feeling exposed and vulnerable to what others think, nearly all the time.  There have been many nights - even in the last six months - that I have cried myself to sleep because of the fallout, the pointed fingers, the broken relationships, the constant criticism and the lack of any kind of attempt to understand what I'm trying to accomplish. Grief over lost contact, lost favour, lost relationship, is something I deal with daily. All too often, the weight of shame and the crushing, smothering feelings of loneliness, fear and anxiety overwhelm me. 

I fight to keep in the moment; it is the only way I can survive.
 
I don't know how to get past this wall of misery.  I don't know if I SHOULD get past it.  I don't know if I'm doing any good to anyone - or if secretly I WANT them to suffer.  (Am I really that horrible? How can I ever look at my reflection in the mirror? When will this end? HOW will it end if it does?) 

I don't know.  I really don't.  I have wrestled with saying goodbye for good, with writing them off, with closing the door on that part of my life and never looking back.  

More shame. More vulnerability.  More feeling like I want to crawl into a hole and disappear.  

I am exposing my soft underbelly here - in the hope that shame has a soft underbelly too.  My friend Ellie says that shame and vulnerability hate the truth; they hate compassion.  

I hope so.  I really DO hope so.

The Road to Forgiveness

I want to say at the outset that forgiveness is not, repeat NOT, a one-time decision.  You don't wake up one day and say, "I think I'll forgive ____ for hurting me."  It just doesn't happen.  If someone has told you it happens, that person was lying to you - and probably lying to him or her self. 

No.  Forgiveness is a PROCESS.  I've said it before on this blog and I'll say it again because it bears repeating. 

I'll also say (again) that forgiveness is NOT:
- making excuses for the person,
- saying "there's nothing to forgive,"
- ignoring the problem, or 
- medicating your feelings with whatever makes you (temporarily) feel good.

The process of which forgiveness is a vital part, is as different from one person to another as their personalities.  The length of time it takes is as varied as a day to a lifetime. But even though the journey is different for each person, it always goes through certain stages (the length of which depends on the severity of the wrong committed and whether or not it was a one-time thing):
- hurt (the initial emotional response);
- anger (the God-given protective response);
- grief (releasing what you have lost - what the offender took from you or poisoned);
- acceptance (of the offender's part and of your own);
- forgiveness (letting go of your right to punish the offender); and
- healing (moving on).

Link for this photo is HERE

This cycle can be repeated with the same person for the same offense (especially if the hurt is deep or has taken place over a long time) - or a new hurt can piggyback onto an older one and start the process all over again. It doesn't mean that the person in the forgiveness process has failed.  

A person does not need to feel guilty for having feelings that are normal and healthy to have, while going through this process.  It is what it is WHILE it is, and God is in charge of the process.  (Or did I forget to mention that at the outset?) 

It's humanly impossible to forgive a deep or long-standing hurt. In human strength, well, you can never do it by yourself.  Other human friends can help, but the process is supernatural in nature and as such, requires divine help. 

It takes as long as it takes. 

And it is not, nor should it ever be, equated with walking back into an abusive situation just because you've "forgiven."  You can forgive without being foolish. Certain people are just plain poison.  Forgiveness won't change them; in fact, they'll take advantage of you if they can, and will try to convince you that "forgive and forget" is in the Bible somewhere.  It isn't.  The only One who forgets (and that, by choice) is God.  It is not a human trait.  One day, after we've shed our earthly bodies, all tears will be wiped away from our eyes - - but until then, it will be impossible to forget the deep hurts.  It doesn't mean that we've not forgiven.  That's not what forgiveness is.  

Forgiveness - when you get there and not before - is a releasing of your right to expect the other person to repay you for whatever it is he or she took from you, whether that was self-respect, trust, possessions, innocence, or whatever. One thing that helped me come to this place toward my abusers was a statement that a speaker came out with in one of her talks: "The moment that person took whatever it is from you, it flew away, never to return.  That person can NEVER give that back to you because he or she doesn't have it anymore.  It's gone.  So you have a choice now.  You can hold onto something that doesn't exist anymore - or you can let it go." 

The alternative is what one dear old recovering alcoholic said once: "Not forgiving is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die."

All it takes is a willingness to begin the healing process, and a simple request made to God to walk you through it.  

The right diagnosis

I've been going to physiotherapy sessions for the last few weeks after I "put my back out" one weekend.  

When I first got to physiotherapy, my therapist started treating my most problematic symptoms - in my lumbar area.  She gave me exercises to do. The pain started to become more manageable.  She got me to sleep with a pillow between my knees.  Sometimes the pain would be better, sometimes worse, depending on how I turned in bed or moved at work, getting in and out of the car, going up or down stairs.  The pain - when it came back - settled in one hip or the other and there were days it would radiate down the outside of my thigh.

This diagram I found HERE

About two weeks into treatment, my physiotherapist started talking about my sacro-iliac (SI) joint when I described the pain. 

I thought she was way off base, because for years my chiropractor had been telling me that the problem was in my spine.  Perhaps part of it was.  But this felt a bit different ... and I did the exercises she suggested, and things started to improve, as long as I did them correctly.  But I didn't quite understand what I was supposed to feel, where that "pull" she talked about was supposed to happen. 

I just knew that I hurt, and I wanted it to stop.

Out of curiosity (or was it desperation?) I looked up the SI joint online and found that it is the joint between the sacrum (just below the vertebrae, above the tailbone) and the ilium.  A dysfunction there will pinch the sciatic nerve.  And voilà - pain! A little more searching and I discovered a specialist's site which talked about a way to correct SI dysfunction through targeting that specific joint in a series of similar exercises which one could do one way lying down, another sitting, and another standing. I spent about ten or twenty minutes studying the mechanics of the exercises so I could be sure I knew how to do them.

And then I tried them.  What a difference!  I suddenly knew exactly what I was supposed to feel because I felt it!  Deep inside - I felt the stretch exactly where the pain originated.  It was difficult to get into that position.  But SO needed. SO worth it.  

It's amazing.  But if I had operated on the assumption that this was a lumbar spine problem rather than an SI problem - I might have wasted a lot of time and been in a lot more pain for a lot longer.  It's so important to know what the REAL problem is.  Going on a wrong diagnosis might fix something (more by accident than anything) but knowing what the issue is, goes a long way toward dealing with it. 

True in physical pain... true in emotional pain.  

I've been in emotional pain, a lot, and thought it was because the people in my life wouldn't listen to me, or because I needed to have this or that one need me or thank me or ... whatever.  And I imagine (because I am human and as such, selfish) that I'll experience that kind of pain again.  Hopefully not as often. :)  

I found the information I needed to be able to heal inside.  And it was hard.  But I started to heal.  And that was far better than just doing the same old thing and getting the same old results.

Being able to be honest with myself, and targeting the source of the pain, rather than dealing with just the symptoms and what I THOUGHT it was ... even though it might have been harder ... resulted in healing.  It still does. 

It appalls me sometimes that it took me this long to find what I needed to heal from the inside out, to be able to have the right emotional diagnosis so that I could do what I needed to do to stop the pain.  That's a big part of why I wrote my book: I don't believe that a person should have to wait until he or she is 48 years old (like I did) before starting to get better.  

But regardless of how long it took to start .... I'm so glad I did.  So glad.

It's official

It's official.  I am now a published author.

The words look strange to me.  I've been writing ever since I was a teenager ... songs, poetry, journals.   I have been writing on this blog for over a year - yet - now I have not only written a book, but it is now published.

To purchase your own copy, go to:
www.smashwords.com/

The title is the same as the title of this blog; in fact, I started the book and named it, even finished the first draft, before I started this site.  

It's exciting, to be sure.  Yet there is a feeling of incredible vulnerability.  

The experiences God has brought me through have healed me, made me whole and happy, and I have been waiting to share those things with the world; you've seen some of those things on this blog and my book just gives the complete story.  

But ... there is such a feeling of being exposed in this newest step.  It's like this is my own child, borne out of a lot of pain: a vital part of me, my life, my place in the world.  And now it's out there, a struggling, squalling infant ... and the world can be a scary, dangerous, and overwhelming place at times.  

That being said - I would rather launch this new venture with you, my faithful readers, than with any stranger.  So with this in mind, I present to you the fruit of my labour and God's empowerment.  Just to to the link in the artwork above... which, I am proud and pleased to say, was done by a very dear friend of mine.  Lisa Bulman Taylor - thank you so very much.  It's been an absolute pleasure working with you.  

Deep breath.   Onward!