Shame Share
The lies we live by …
Do you suffer from Change Shame?
I made up a definition. Want to hear it?
Change shame is the embarrassment one experiences when they have to tell others of a change they have or wish to make. Sufferers can segment their symptoms as such:
- Changes of personal or professional choice;
o Example: Choosing to reschedule an appointment, project, or move a deadline.
- Changes of circumstance; and
o Example: An externally sourced change beyond the control of those it most effects.
- Changes of association.
o Example: Similar to a change of circumstance, as the change arrives externally with no or little input from those who most experience impact. The key difference being that a change of association comes from a group or institution one is part of by choice, necessity, or chance.
Where shame comes in? Having to communicate this change.
Communication is the white elephant in the room.
Sufferers go through a multistage process when faced with change. First, there is acceptance, then, resignation. Finally: integration. This is the sticky part! The making of space for alternation is only a small aspect of ‘dynamic acceptance’. With Change Shame comes the tightness in the chest, puffing of breath, running to the washroom aspect of REPORTING and communicating said change.
Ground Zero at Simplicity Do Your Dream Central:
I have GOOD news to share: I shimmied my way into a workshop lead by one of my GREAT writing teachers, Yahdon Israel. This is super. Earnestly, the opportunity is rare, intensive, with a small cohort of writers by which I am (very honestly) humbled.
OK, so what is the problem?
Thank you for asking! I am most happy to dump my hang ups on you!
The workshop causes a scheduling conflict for my beloved SDYD Creatives’ Meetup for artists to mingle, share insights, resources, and services.
Makers Mondays are not only an important resource for my clients and community, but something I truly enjoy doing. Very truly. This is not rescheduling one event. This is a shake up and coordination tap dance that touches on the rest of the year – no joke.
Scheduling on a micro and macro level is a big stickler for me. I have a sincere talent in scheduling built NOT from aptitude but from anxiety. In that I (WRONGLY!) associate expedient, efficient, and definitive scheduling as a mark of maturity and professionalism. Too often, have I used the crunch of scheduling “correctness” to mask truer difficulties in communication, deliverables, execution, pricing, services, and/or associated details. This speaks to an excess of ability and the under-development of skill in analyzing and preventing other error. Think of it as corrective cherry picking – I am skilled enough to sense a problem, but too jacked in how to address it.
Why the fuck is that?
Here again comes our old pal Shame, telling me that nothing is good enough and planning is better than being present. The perfect totem of self-punishment sold as self-improvement. This, dear reader, is what Gaslighting is: a flare, a distraction from what might be really informative, thereby, or use.
This is not a burning at the stake sentiment. It is a sin, however, solving only a small, small part of the problem. A misbelief of rigidity standing in for character.
Smoke and too many mirrors dancing in the eye of our professional ego, shaking and shading our abilities to address what we should be doing to make us our best. I should rephrase that: We invite her to. We choose the route -I choose – the most familiar or well worn. A narrative of no-go we constructed from an equal dose of experiences and fantasy.
I like to think of it as “Only I can punch my sister”: an allowance of acceptable abuse.
Another great approach is that of masking. So bombastic an emotion SHAME, it conceals the less headline grabbing one of “instability”. Massive and amorphous, and in vogue these days, we beg stability from the impossible universes and are so shaken up by the demonstration, that we are (and do) spin in equally maddening, untethered speed.
Thus, when we need move dates, make typos, don’t know, misspeak or misstep, it is as if the elegancy of our Milky Way is stained. Like, how admitting you are drunk, somehow makes you walk straighter. Calling out what is true, surely sobers a body up!
Fighting flux causes you greater bending and breakage. Something comes up and an alteration is needed. Sure, easier said than done, like letting a dress out because your middle has evolved without asking permission. Anger and avoidance do not a flatter belly or firmer professional reputation make. For one, I learned this when working in women’s health. So many of my colleagues were parents. With so many pots on the stove, balls in the air, and plates spinning, everyday was a lesson in best laid plans abandoned and embraced.
The thing is, these folks STILL got a lot done, and, more importantly, were HELLA successful. We here (still @ SDYD ground zero) have the selling of that company to thank for the beginnings of our SDYD.
Point: The Shame is an artifice, and association with change erroneous. Shame is a stern commitment to failure as a preference to looking at what is VERY frightening: the truth. Reality being that we might be able to be as buoyant and shifty as we like as long as we are honest and true. That our value is based on much more earnest nature vs redundancy.
Lastly, what I shall leave you with on this is something you likely have come to appreciate and loath from me: an “TMB TMI” association to make the takeaway squeamish and unforgettable.
Think of sex in a long-term romance. Comparison to how frequently we canoodle, how adventurous or athletic, how long and who says what is to place the import of intimacy squarely on uglies bumping. An element certainly, but evolved organisms are constructed of numerous elements. To that end, we ALL know the pain of an affair to short and squarely set in sex, vapid of value and vacant of dialogue.
You are not your schedule. Assertion of accommodation is NOT A THING. If shame is to be set, make it over actual indiscretion and ill. If you want to take a workshop, just do. Don’t let the calendar or the communication be your regressive red herring.
What might be best to keep in mind is that change might well be a moment for submission and admittance. A democratic even in which we can share and expose our humanity, offering a bit of a ‘me too’ to those around us. You may well be surprised by the sites you hear around you:
Look at her she is human too! Just like me!
