Archive for guilt and shame
Happiness on This Side of the Rainbow
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve played the piano since I was six and still enjoy playing for pleasure. My favorite book for the past couple years has been a collection of Eva Cassidy arrangements, and the most turned-to page of this book is the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (words by E Y Harburg):
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, in a land that I heard of once in a lullaby… Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dared to dream really do come true….
Eva ends her arrangement with a longing-filled ending… If happy little blue birds fly above the rainbow why, oh why, can’t I?
Today I spent about 5 hours doing a long-anticipated bedroom cleanup. I still had some gifts to find a place for, garbages to empty, recycling to cart up and down the stairs, laundry to do, clothes to sort. I began with grand illusions of deep cleaning absolutely every corner of my room, sorting through EVERYTHING, recycling or bagging stuff up for the Sally Anne, dusting the baseboards, arranging my cd collection, loading up my new ipod, figuring out my new alarm clock, re-organizing my bathroom cabinet, oh, and sorting through ALL my desk stuff, bills, receipts, notes etc. At the end, every little detail would be in spic and span shape, and I would recline and feel excellent.
About halfway through I felt overwhelmed. The clock seemed to be moving faster than normal. I cleaned out 2 drawers of a dresser that I don’t think I had sorted through since I moved in a year and a half ago! I started to hear those old voices, the guilty ones. “Man you collect a lot of stuff… if you would just keep on top of your organization, you wouldn’t have such a mess to deal with… you should be giving some of this stuff to poor people who really need it… you need to let go… and look at all the books on your shelf that you haven’t read yet!”
And at the same time I was thinking of the other things I still wanted to do today- write, get cleaned up myself, visit my brother at his new place for dinner. I started downsizing my organization. Pile everything on the desk to sort through another day… same with the cds… and the laundry. By the end, even though I had worked hard for 5 hours, this song was going through my head… Somewhere over the rainbow…
A rainbow is a beautiful thing, a sign of hope, of renewal, of new rain. But a somewhere over the rainbow has been one of the biggest hurtles for me. Grand illusions, standards of perfection that are never attainable, a wistful romantic picture of circumstances in which I will finally find unending, supreme happiness…
It’s not life, and it’s not truth. And I’m tired of getting wonked in the forehead by rainbows…
I stop and take the time to look at myself. 5 hours of cleaning is a pretty great accomplishment. And in the bigger picture, what I’m doing with my life right now is great as well. I am flying. I am flying NOW. Wistfully sitting on the ground, envying “happy little bluebirds” or anguishing over not being able to fly over some insurmountable rainbow robs me of my true accomplishments and value, and only serves to keep me on the ground. Accepting and affirming my own wings in action today will fuel a long and fulfilling journey in the best possible way.
I think it’s time for a new favorite song. 
Ten Differences between living Broken and living Whole
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This list is a comparison of how my life used to be, compared to how it is today. ~Darlene
Brokenness:
~the oppression of depression
~the guilt and shame of mental illness
~the guilt and shame of emotional abuse (or any other type of abuse)
~the weight and responsibility of the world
~self hate
~the darkness that hangs over days and nights
~questioning self worth, validity and value
~not accepting or understanding having a right to equality
~difficulty trusting others
~false definition (misunderstanding) of what love is
Wholeness:
~the joy of waking up to a new day
~unfathomable energy to accomplish tasks
~laughter straight from the depth of the soul
~embracing the truth and leaving the lies behind
~owning individuality and self worth
~realizing my soul purpose and embracing it
~facing fear; knowing the truth about fear
~trusting self, loving self
~ability to accept love and ability to love
~living life to the fullest
My Hungry Heart ~ Part 3 of 3
Posted by: | CommentsI grew up striving to find proof outside of myself that I truly was okay. This was my addiction. It was 2 fold: one part of it was constantly trying to figure out what other people thought of me, and the other part involved modifying my “outsides,” morphing myself, to try and fulfill what I believed other people’s expectations of me were. Like all addictions, it was extremely burdensome, but I did it to help myself survive.
My family life created the vacuum, let the big question “am I okay?” go unanswered. The church that I grew up in contributed to my dis-ease, creating bars that held me back from finding the answer. Church introduced me to self-examination. I fully value being self-aware, but the purpose of this examination was to create guilt and shame.“Examine your heart before doing this or that… Make sure your motives are right… Man looks at the outside, but God looks at the inside [so make sure your insides are good]…” Constant, heavy, suspicious examination. This became one of my biggest slave masters and I became a master at doing it. I was striving desperately for the answer to my question, but if an answer felt “too good to be true” I doubted it. I doubted myself all the time, because how could I know whether my “insides” were good or bad, whether I was on the right track? This self-doubt was the root of my depression and angst.
At age 26 I was so weary. A friend recommended a counsellor to me and I was willing to try whatever it took to find relief. This counsellor was able to help me discover the real truth about myself, for myself. He was a light, already fired up, someone I could spend some time with to get my own light burning again. He was a master not at “fixing me”, but at fanning into flame the truth that was still burning deep down inside myself. The truth he helped me to discover was that my heart is good. Fully and completely good. No questions asked, no proof required, in all its ramifications and outward actions, uniquely beautiful and good intentioned. It was the kind of truth-discovering that’s hard to explain. It just feels really good, like Christmas morning… Deep down, unabashed, grinning ear to ear truth. For someone like me, it was easy to doubt at first, to be suspicious of. But after awhile, my hungry heart couldn’t get enough. For a time, I needed this source outside of myself and outside of the church to tell me this truth, over and over again. Now that my own light is burning brighter, I’m getting the hang of it for myself. I’m rebuilding my foundation, setting myself up for a life of living as my true self, fulfilled and excited to be alive.
