Say My Shame

Bus stops. Not only a post from which we drop and pick up our kids, they’re also a sacred place for moms to stop just long enough to spill the craziness of our day before our kids spill out.  

Since my oldest started Kindergarten, the big yellow bus and its petite driver Mrs. Pace have been a blessing. Riding the bus has allowed him to exhibit his innate independence and build confidence, and it’s given me the gifts of time, friendship and most recently, inspiration. 

Upon my arrival to the rusty stop sign down the street, two of my mom friends were enthralled in a seemingly serious conversation. I unapologetically intruded to learn Lynn was confessing to Melissa that two of her kids had fallen victim to a virus that may or may not have been the flu. And despite her best intentions, the vaccines simply hadn’t made it to the top of her long to-do list, and for that, she was sick.  

In my effort to ease her angst and perhaps my own, as my kids likely wouldn’t have gotten flu shots if not for my safety-first husband’s help, I spouted off, “there’s nothing you can do about it now,” and proceeded to butcher one of my favorite quotes by philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” 

I don’t want to debate vaccines, but I do want to shed light on a silent epidemic that will never have one. It affects all humans and is especially rampant amongst those who have given birth to and/or care for other humans. Its symptoms include isolation, despair, feelings of unworthiness and a lack of control. I’m referring to shame which Merriam-Webster defines as a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming or impropriety. 

Shame sits closely to its more talked about cohort guilt, but is its own emotion with the nuanced difference of guilt being the bad feeling about what you did, and shame being the bad feeling about who you are. 

It was clear that my version of the Emerson quote gave my friends assurance that they, too, could emancipate themselves from the bad feelings they had about themselves based on things they’d done or not done. It provided them, as it had me, with an excuse to exhale. For Lynn, it seemed to offer relief from more than the mom guilt of a missed flu shot, and the same for Melissa who dubbed it, “her new mantra.”  

Modern moms are expected to be all things to everyone. For most of us, the truth that such efforts come at too great a cost is a pill we can swallow with our heads but often not our hearts.

Laundry Day by Giselle Denkel

I guess it’s because we’ve been told we can and should, and whether we really want to or not, we decide we will. Then as the balls inevitably fall from the air, each pang of guilt from the missed appointments, deadlines and to-do’s culminates into a pile of “I suck’s” matched in size only by the mountain clean laundry we’ve yet to put away.

I initially found solace in Emerson’s words as a twenty-something girl on the hunt for my next promotion, my husband and ultimately myself and was blissfully unaware of why it struck such a cord. Today as a mom of three who’s traded working for the man, or woman in my case, for working for and on myself, my time spent looking for a husband has been replaced with looking for healthy’ish one-pot recipes and missing socks, shoes and shin guards. And while the footwear often eludes me, the reason I connected with the quote has since become clear.

I was harboring shame like a dress in the back of my closet I’d kept years but wasn’t sure why. Old, uncomfortable and unflattering, it was taking up precious space and needed to be tossed

It’s likely my flippant advice gave Lynn the false impression I’d mastered the skill of letting go of guilt. When in fact, the lessons I’ve learned on how swapping self-loathing for self-love came on the heels of heartache, hard work and healing - a process that if working well, never ends.

As I identified and analyzed my life’s darkest moments, I recognized unmet expectation as the common thread in my shame web.  As a southern, Christian girl I was to be pretty, pure and pleasing in looks and deeds. As an extremely empathetic individual, I was to single-handedly heal the world of hurt. Sensitive and creative, I was to be an artist. 

My plights to please myself and the world around me came with a naive hope that when met with disappointment, fear, or guilt, ignited a vicious cycle of shame. 

And while it came on like a cold as a kid, it was the demands motherhood asked of my body, mind and soul that worsened it into a full-blown flu. As a new mother, I was to be exhibit the ideal blend of nurturing a career and a family. But the balance escaped me. I couldn’t protect my children from pain, and worse, I worried I was the cause of it.

After the birth of my daughter, our third baby in less than five years, I was suffering from depression and anxiety that could certainly be labeled as postpartum, but had been an unidentified parasite much of my life. I was knocked down on my butt, and while I didn’t care for the view, I knew I needed help getting up. I decided to use it as bait to reel in big life lessons that I would fry up and share with anyone hungry for self-compassion and connection. 

I worked to better understand and reconnect with the real me. I worked to stay open to inspiration and to muster the courage to follow it. I gave myself permission to follow my heart and toss the expectations out along with bags of clothes I’d held onto but never loved. I found empathy for myself in the wise words of women like Glennon Doyle, Maya Angelou and Elizabeth Gilbert, whose courageous stories inspired me to write my own.

And before I knew it, mistakes that were once heavy links in a chain that had shackled my spirit transformed into lessons that lifted it up.

In her book I Thought It Was Just Me, But It Isn’t, researcher and shame-fighting super hero Dr. Brene’ Brown shares this nugget of brilliance,

“If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially. Secrecy, silence and judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” 

So as it turns out, my friend Lynn was eager and appreciative for help in shedding her shame, but as the self-reliant transcendentalist Mr. Emerson knew all along, she didn’t need any help at all. For through the courageous act of her bus stop sharing, she was well on her way to starving any guilt-induced shame and feeding her soul. 

I believe the good in all of us has the ability to transcend logic, and I have faith that the universe will help us to help ourselves as long as we let it. 

I’m also a mom of three kids six and under and two dogs, and therefore understand that sometimes the only expectation a mama can meet is to simply survive.  

Sometimes the idea of digging up the past feels too painful, the task of righting society’s wrongs too huge or the lowering of expectations you’ve been conditioned to keep high, too hard.  

When, not if, the blunders and absurdities creep in between me and my goals, I’m going to have a good cry, put Band-Aid on the cut, and once it heals, choose to see the scar as part of my story someone is waiting to hear. 

As long as we prevent dirty deeds from becoming dirty little secrets, they will never have the power to tarnish our spirits.

By sharing and truly hearing others with empathy and love, we can lighten our collective mother load, free ourselves to find grace amidst gravity and soar to unimaginable heights. 

And if mama is soaring, chances are, so is everyone else.