Hey everyone! It’s me, Rebecca.
I am an expert on shame.
When I was a kid, my sister and I recorded ourselves singing on a tape recorder. Our mom walked by and stopped to listen, then she asked what that awful sound was in the background. That awful sound was me, Friends. Ouch.
I quit singing.
A few years later, I messed up royally during a piano recital. The other kids got hugs and roses from their parents. I didn’t. My parents walked me out in dead silence.
I quit playing piano.
When I was a teenager, I took my art portfolio to an interview for a summer art camp. The two reviewers started making jokes about one of my pieces.
I quit painting.
For years, I thought I quit those things out of perfectionism, but that wasn’t it at all. I just couldn’t take the shaming.
There’s a great quote in the book: “Shame is retriggered in us as adults because our internal artist is always our creative child.”
Now, when I read about those three shaming incidents I mentioned above, my instinct is to protect that kid! To get angry at those people and encourage her to keep going.
Since the first time I read TAW, I’ve learned to protect myself from shaming by following one rule: I share my creative life (new projects, ideas, works in progress) only with people I KNOW will be supportive. I let everyone else in when I’m ready.
For example, I have one friend who’s a troubleshooter. When you tell her about an idea, she points out the negatives. If I told her about a new idea for something creative, she would try to shame me into dropping it. So, I manage the situation by not telling her about projects until they’re done.
Instead of quitting things to avoid shaming, I’m doing the things I enjoy and nipping the shame in the bud.
That doesn’t mean criticism never comes my way. If you share what you do, you WILL get criticized. But now that I’m protecting that creative child in me, I can appreciate good criticism and let it make me better instead of being devastated by it.
Do you have a shame demon (a past devastating incident) that needs to be exorcised? Feel free to share it here, or let us know what you’re doing to deal with the fear of shame and move forward.
Wow, did this ever hit home or what. When I decided to start AW my husband was away hunting. When he got back I was very excited about my project and told him about it. All I got was negative feedback, so much so that I put off starting by a few days. Now that I am doing AW I hope he realizes that now matter what he says there are some things that I just need to do for myself and this is one of them. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in January and am finding that writing is helping me deal with it. I am so glad to have found AW & 750words. come, they are a real life saver to me. To heck with my “shame demon” and shame on him!!!
There is a quote in the Shame section that says, “…How dare you make that rotten piece of art?” It could even be turned around to say, how dare you make that magnificent piece of art? I think a lot of shaming events in my life may have happened when things went right when they weren’t supposed to. Friends and family that I counted on for encouragement instead pointed out that I must be a total weirdo for doing that well …I’m not like them anymore…I don’t fit in with the ones I care about…so I think that those experiences made me hold back in the future. I certainly didn’t want to be strange.
To deal with shame in the future, I am trying affirmations and reminding myself that its ok to be different. I also try to remind myself that I don’t always have to fit in with what friends and family think I should be.
What a blessing it is to get to the stage in ones life where you really dont have to be liked or like everyone. The strange thing is that since I have realised this, I have more friends than ever (still very few yippee!!) I have filtered the fair weather friends and just deleted their numbers from my phone. The few friends I do have would never shame me or be negative and I would protect them to the ends of the earth.
I have not told my husband that I am doing TAW as I have realised that there are things he just will not identify with and this is one of them. I dont want to open myself to the misunderstanding. The other day while I was painting he wanted to see what I was doing. Now I knew that he would not understand nor like what I am painting so I braced myself for whatever came my way. He huffed and said “what is that ? A clock?” I said yes and then he huffed again and walked out. Well I didnt expect any more he really thinks that art is only about pretty pictures which match the lounge suite and I am JUST NOT that kind of artist, I take my art far, far further and that is what makes it so hard for me but this is honestly the only way I can create, it is me and not everyone will like it!! Yippee!!!
Hey I love my husband to bits he is a great guy he just doesnt know. He will get to understand all in good time.
Chanda, I haven’t told my husband about TAW for the same reason; he would probably respond exactly like your husband did, Michelle.
A couple years ago I exorcised a shame demon and created a new one.
My mother dashed my dream of singing on stage when I was little; she told me my singing was not very good. Two years ago, I gave up that story and hired a singing coach and performed in a talent show.
I know my voice was cracking and I only had three months practicing, but it really was quite courageous to sing in front of 70+ people. The show was about being in action to fulfill your dreams.
Everyone said they were inspired and complimented my performance, except…my husband. We were newlyweds at the time and I thought I had to share everything with him. I don’t think I prepped him properly for the show or expressed how much it meant to me and why because he still teases me about my singing…I’m going to share my feelings with him this weekend so he’ll know that it hurts me when he does that.
Singing is not my passion, however it’s a part of my creativity and to let that be stepped on is to hurt my creative child.
I came to America when I was a young child and I had a very strong accent. Growing up the children at school will verbally beat up because of it. They also made fun of how I expressed myself through my dressing and mannerism. I even remembered writing a love letter to middle school crush and he displayed it among everyone in class, the students laughed at me especially because I had spelt a word wrong. I am in my early 20′s now and majority of life I have been a shamed of who I am and how I go about expressing myself. I am ready to heal all my open wounds from my past and break all the destructive myths I created about myself and be the person the ‘great’ Creator intended me to be!