Guilty

I have been asked several times why I didn’t give my marriage another shot, why I didn’t give my ex husband another chance since he was willing too. I am asked if I feel guilty about that, and the answer is almost always yes. Yes I do feel guilty all the time. If grief is a reminder of how much you loved, then guilt is shame’s invisible veil that keeps you trapped in the past. 

I need to talk about guilt and grief. And by this time next year I want to be talking about it again with a deeper understanding of it. Remember when I said in my Bio on this blog that you could show up here (and on our Instagram page) JUST as you are? I welcomed the liars and the drunks, and the ‘bully’ and the adulterer and I said this was home. This is where we assign new names to one another, member that? Well, you are who I am talking to today and we are gonna get a little closer to the bottom of this gritty guilt. 

Guilt is such an asshole if you think about it. And we all want to know if you did something bad you feel it. Most of us, if we are honest, also want to see you wallow in your regret for a designated amount of time so we can trust you really feel it, and ‘get’ what you have done. God forbid if you look the slightest bit happy, if you are enjoying anything that reminds us of our own grief, or own loss, we heep that guilt back onto your side of the court like hot potato. I see parents use shame and guilt ALL the time to get a specific behavior from a child (talk about wanting to punch an adult in the face) and the sentence that falls from their mouth is almost always “It’s fine if they feel a little embarrassed, a little shame, it will teach them!” Do we really need to go back to one of the very first Instagram TV episodes we ever did? OK, mom and dad, sister and friend, lover and ex spouse, step dad and step mom,  let me give you a little science lesson.

When a human being feels shame, embarrassment, failure; when we make a mistake and feel those tough emotions, our brain (the amygdala specifically) sends a large amount of cortisol and norepinephrine to the learning center of our brain. What happens next is these chemicals help shut down that learning/growing/changing center of the brain (you know the spot where that child you are scolding publicly is going to use in order to correct his behavior). IT SHUTS DOWN guys. Your brain is hardwired to shut down and protect you from the stress shame brings, and then you can no longer learn how to ‘do better’ next time. In a relationship it can look like a spouse heaping their own pain onto the other one with shameful comments. Now said spouse can’t even decode the pain his wife is in because she just spent the last ten minutes berating him.  Shame and guilt are literally useless. Let me say that again, shame and guilt are useless. They do NOT teach a child for ‘next time.’ In fact, that child will shut his or her heart down to you so they never have to feel the shame you used to hose them down with again. I don’t know about you but I do not desire fear based obedience over heart to heart connection.

We use shame and guilt in an attempt to make our own pain go away, or to justify it and give it some sort of meaning as well. I have been told on my social media platforms that I am a homewrecker, a husband stealer. I asked for recommendations on books once that could help me navigate blending my family with the man I had an affair with. Women actually created fake Instagram accounts to be able to safely leave shaming comments condemning me and my children for that ‘book ask’ I had put out there. We use shame when we come into contact with our own humanity, our own unasked for incredible sorrow and loss. Adults use shame and guilt on one another like a two year old has a tantrum over not getting their way. 

We also feel shame when we are faced with our own fragility. The humiliation of being the person left behind in a marriage when a spouse has been unfaithful. The triggering cascade of self worth that comes into question when your husband, your mother as a child, the magazines as a teenager continue to tell you that your fat body is unacceptable in this world. Your entire church ‘family’ and God himself shaming you into a body and a life that is not natural to you…guilting you into loving the opposite of what your gut tells you to do. Shame is a prison sentence. But, you hold the keys to the kingdom my brave friends.

whether you use guilt to deflect feeling your own life, or barry yourself in shame in an effort to change, know this (it’s a free key) it won’t work. Making someone feel badly because you are in pain (even if they caused it) won’t actually take your pain away my love. What it will do is perpetuate your bitterness and keep you from moving into the next stage (which gets you closer to your fought for freedom!) Being raped was not your fault. Not any point of it, AT ALL. It does not matter how much you drank or were you where. But cursing the human who catastrophically altered the plain of your soul only keeps you cursing. Come to the pain after that rage has quieted and get on the floor with it. Stay with the pain until it takes away the shame. I have had the unbelievable privilege of holding space for some women who have stayed on the floor with their pain until they emerged free. Make no mistake, I did none of the work for them, I didn’t even have access the threshing floor, but I waited outside the door and watched who came out and it was not who went in.    

You know when someone has done their work (the job on the inside were the grief and pain live) when they no longer need to assign blame, or keep a bucket just for their searing grief. You know when someone has done the wadding into the mud of their own life when they don’t trash talk their grief giver anymore, or shame themselves in an attempt to shoe the guilt flies away. You can really tell when someone has finished their walk of shame when they have forgiven themselves, and are actually enjoying their own happiness. The mother who has lost her baby will never not have a gaping aching hole in her heart, and she also has the wisdom to understand nothing will ever fill it, so she needn’t try. New experiences, new loves, new hope will grow in that hole but it remains a hole she never tried to fill so she can experience joy again in the present. 

I don’t want to feel guilty anymore for breaking up my family. That is not even a true enough statement anyways. It took myself and my husband to break up that marriage, but we are STILL a family. And just because he would have stayed despite our mess and I did not, does not require I wear a guilt like a scarlet letter for the rest of my life. It is OK to choose myself. Glennon Doyle says “to choose yourself is too choose God.” I am all done with the “should’s” and I don’t exactly know how to unlearn what my culture has taught me about the nuclear family and the role of the mother, but I am gonna find out. I am not getting off this goddamn floor until I have the freedom I am fighting for. I will not wear shame for the mistakes I have made forever. I will ask for forgiveness and I will bear the marks of someone who has caused scarring, but I will not be the sum of my errors.

Brene Brown said “It is hard to practice compassion when we are struggling with our own authenticity, or when our own worthiness is off balance.” I will leave you with this brave hearts, when you go to find the person with whom you can share your shame story with (the person who will let you be on the floor with your pain) make sure they are someone who has earned the right to hear it. Make sure they understand it is a fucking privilege to hold space for you in your shame and guilt. 

I have your back, and I am honored to hold vigil for you if you need it. 

Pinz xoxo