If I show my nakedness to you, please do not make me feel shame -e.e. cummings
Perhaps, one of the most embarrassing moments any person may experience is being caught undressed, without any minute piece of cloth or even a thread that may cover our nakedness…
There is perhaps a reason why our first parents-Adam and Eve-deemed it best to clothe themselves after the fateful FALL. The fall has to come first before I could realize my weakness, my limits, my destitution, my needs… and the shame that accompanies them.
Shame has a power on its own…formidable if you aren’t watching.
One of its greatest artillery is the uneasy, unworthy, unbecoming feeling of being worse than nothing after the fall. And the thought of redemption becomes beyond reach that I naturally and in reflex thought of saving me…
Saving myself though I recently learned is a futile effort, is a learned experience especially when there was no one there to count on but myself, me and I. There was no one to treat my wounds — the ones that makes the heart sick. No one to comfort me in the dark–the kind of night that makes it longer to wait for the day. No one to tell me, “Everything is going to be okay” or simply “I am here.”
Unlearning self-redemption requires a lifetime of discipline as making it habit has been a tool-nay, a handy mechanism for coping in life–or against life. Life as I knew it then, needs me to be on guard, on my toes all the time until the next whack! Or the next boomerang… whatever!
The most rational reaction to shame then is to cover it up…
To build the walls… of any kind-anger and resentment are a twosome like bricks and stones. Apathy and disinterestedness is another tandem. Cold hatred, unforgiveness…
To put on a mask–just like in a theater saying the following:
” I am okay”… “I do not need you”… “I am better off without you”…”You mean nothing to me”…”You cannot hurt me anymore”… “I can make it on my own”…”I am happy, thank you.” Pretense is the name of the game.
To analyze every single thing in order to control them – because life that is not in my control will surely put me down, I will control everything that I can–even those I cannot.
The most gruesome thing about weaving this web of lie to protect myself to survive is that it is precisely a LIE. And being caught in a lie reinforces the shame that reinforces the lie until it goes on and on and on and on…
until I find myself in a bind…unfree.
And the enemy has caught me naked..like the tale of the emperor with new clothes… the only difference is when I look in the mirror I could no longer see me.
