The shape of shame
My five-year old asked me recently if he could get rid of a part of himself. We were sitting in the playroom. He started sleeping on a twin bed in there a few weeks earlier after sleeping with Nic and I since birth. His body shifted from side to side as he inquired with the kind of earnestness I have only experienced from children, Can I Mommy, can I make this angry part go away forever? I felt a weight drop in my chest coupled with guilt.
It starts so young. This desire to eliminate the parts of ourselves that act out because they are hurt and have no tools to navigate the situation.
There are so many reasons we hurt each other. The pain from our lived experiences. The ways we have been harmed or oppressed. Rather than meet the big feelings with tenderness, we lie, numb, sidestep, spend money, consume, act out, deprive ourselves, and gas light each other in attempts to preserve our goodness, in attempts to prove that we aren’t hurting. It’s uncomforta…