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If you struggle with shame - this story might resonate.
I'm 17 years old, and it's the last week of school exams for my final year of school.
For the last year, my father didn't speak to me. I was always afraid of him.
Earlier that morning, I came into the prayer room with all my strength and said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I disappointed you... and I'm sorry I let you down."
He has been angry, hurt, disappointed... I would even say he was embarrassed and ashamed of his daughter.
So on this particular day, a year of not speaking, and he is driving me to the train station for my final exams, he said...."I have been so stressed because of you. And your mother and I have problems because of you... and I had to find comfort outside of your mother because of you."
At this stage of my life, my father was a Buddhist monk and shaman. He was an incredible healer for the community - and I was so confused by it all in our home life.
My mother and father were never married, and while we lived in the same home, they weren't "a couple".
For the last year that my father and I haven't been talking, he has been cheating on my mother - "openly" with someone that was a "student" of his.
"Because of what you did, and how your mother is a terrible mother, I needed to find someone else that could be there for me. It's your fault...."
At that time of hearing these words, I really felt it was all my fault. I blamed myself for the dysfunction of our family.
Everyone was hurting. My brother was taking drugs. My mother was in deep pain... and so was my father.
And everyone looked at us as the "perfect" family.
The Buddhist monk, the leader of the community who had a successful daughter that got into one of the top performing schools in the state. A son who is respectable and going to a Catholic school.
Appearances were so deceiving.
....So what did I do that was so bad?
A year earlier, I was coming home from school.
As soon as I stepped onto the grounds of our home... my mother came out screaming, "WHAT DID YOU DO?? YOU'RE DIRTY! YOU SCREWED UP YOUR LIFE...." and then I was hit with a slap.
Then came my dad.
I was always fearful of my dad. He was really strict, stern, and stoic. There was no warmth. A quiet man with few words. Yet, a powerful healer, a Shaman and a Buddhist monk.
To me, my father was the equivalent of God. I had him on a pedal stool that could do no wrong.
I was desperate for his approval, desperate for his validation, and absolutely fearful and terrified of saying the wrong thing and doing anything he disapproves of.
Startled. I had no idea what was going on. I looked around me and noticed all of my textbooks on the ground.
I was then met with another slap, this time from my dad.
At this point, I didn't know why they are so angry, screaming, yelling or what they were going on about...
And then my mum said the yelled..."WE saw your diary...."
At that point, I fell to my knees... slightly fainted... as I knew exactly what they saw.....and I never felt so sick and terrified.
What they would have found was an untouched birth-control packet and a photo of my first love and ex-boyfriend.
My ex-boyfriend, who was also 17, had a huge tiger tattoo on his arm, he had long hair - and he looked like a "gangsta".
It was probably every father's worst nightmare.
I remember being on the ground on my knees; everything was blurry, and hoping that the ground opens up so I could sink into it or that God or some higher power reaching out their arm from the sky to scoop me up and save me.
You see... what they didn't know was the untouched pill packet was given to me by the doctors because I had gone through an abortion.
And what they also didn't know was that immediately after the abortion, my ex-boyfriend broke up with me.
So here I was, a few months over 16 years old, still reconciling that I'm a "murderer" in my mind, going through rejection and abandonment of my first heartbreak, needing to work through the "shame" of sex-before marriage and all the "sins" because of my Buddhist and Catholic upbringing... and my parents found out.
It was also when I started self-harming... and it would be 19 when that addiction turned into a serious attempt to take my life.
Now a year on from that, at 17....and I hear the words, "It's your fault... I'm openly cheating on your mother."
It was messed up. I was messed up. These words, I allowed them to mess me up.
And this is exactly why I teach what I teach - and why I do what I do.
Shame - if you can't meet your shame, if you can't care for it, if you don't know how to navigate it, you will pass it on.
In this particular story, there are so many sides.
There is no "bad" guy...and there is no "hero".
There are people that couldn't process their "hurt".
How is it that you could be bought up in a family with strict rules, and religion; and yet the child makes risky choices?
And what has someone "cheat"?
How does the cycle of shame get passed on?
What has a straight-A good-girl turn into a rebellious, delinquent teenager? - And is this something in our control as parents?
We can't change the past. However, when we don't reconcile the energy of the past, it becomes our future.....and it becomes our children's future.
You see....What I know now is that my parents weren't being their true selves. They were acting from a place of their own wounding.
And not only that, they were living life out of their wounding.
And so were my grandparents.
And so it goes.
My parents had a belief system that "Perfection" = "Love".
They also had the stories of:
"Being a strong Catholic" = "Love"
"Being a strong Buddhist" = "Love"
"Obedience" = "Love"
"Control" = "Love"
Now....none of that is Love... and they didn't know, that they didn't know it wasn't.
What I want you to know about my parents is that they, too, had trauma.
My dad was sent away when he was 3. When he retells this story, I can feel how raw the pain is still for him.
My mother's father (my grandfather), escaped to the USA because of the Vietnam War and left behind my grandmother, who then had to go to jail because of his position in the army. My mother grew up with no parents and only her grandparents. She was around 6 at the time.
So here they are... parenting this 16-year-old, from their 3-year-old or 6-year-old selves that felt completely abandoned, lost, scared, and terrified....and probably blamed themselves for not being loved by their parents. My parents were frozen in time. I mean... I see our 2 young boys....and my parents were completely in a 3-year-old and 6-year-old reaction. (That hitting, that screaming - that's a YOUNG child!).
And this is what happens when we can't process or reconcile "Shame". We get "frozen" in time.
I know Shame well. And Shame is a powerful teacher.... because Shame, the ONLY thing that can transcend it, is one of the most profound facets of Love. Forgiveness.
And it starts with Forgiving yourself.
To heal Shame, meet it with Forgiveness. This is Meeting Fear, with Love.
Shame cannot be alive in your body, when the Love you have for yourself is more powerful than the addiction to how messed up and broken you are.
....AND here's what I also know.
Shame, when unprocessed, becomes this fuel that has us continually wanting to prove ourselves and prove our worth.... and it creates EXTREMELY high functioning people who are at the top of their game, and they crash in their relationships.
I've been there.
That 17-year-old, no matter how tumultuous her inner world was, she still had to perform in her exams and get into University. It didn't matter that she didn't have support or that no one knew how much she was dying inside... she still had to perform, and perform she did.
It's coming to the end of 2022....and if you're not where you want to be in your relationship with yourself, in all the work that you're doing and in your parenting - I'm asking you to have 2023 be different.
Stop performing. Stop holding it all together.
Draw the line in the sand and stop hanging onto how messed up, how broken, how not enough and how unworthy you are.
And if you believe you have a healthy relationship with yourself... and you're still struggling with presence, with compassion, and with trusting life - stop being the strong one.
That's NOT your identity.
Shame has you believe that everything is your fault, everything should be in your control, and everything falls onto you.
It doesn't.
And the sooner you can recognise this, the sooner you can be free.
Shame, is asking you to meet it with Forgiveness.
That's the pathway. That's the key. That's how you heal your Shame.
MEET FEAR, WITH LOVE. I know this to be true.
Sending love,
Yummii xx
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