Warning: Today’s post may be triggering, or emotionally disturbing. Please know that although I’m experiencing darkness, my circle of support is wide and deep. I am leaning into all of it. Writing, teaching, and coaching helps me be of service. Service is where I’m finding solace. Last weekend it was teaching the Winter Glow workshop. I planned to publish a recap of that fantastic experience. And God whispered: No. This is what you need. This is what your community needs. Please. If you, or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255.
I remember the moment Robin Williams taught me something new about depression. God, I wasn’t ready to learn. None of us were. The day one of the funniest people in history hung themselves with a belt. I taught a meditation training in Dallas that morning. August 11, 2014. I felt amazing.
Until I turned sheet-white like the rest of the world.
As kids, my brother and I loved Robin’s coke-fueled stand-up. His gift to make anything and everything ridiculous. Pulling voices and comedy out of the ether. He was a lightning rod, and he was also the lightning. We wore out my Dad’s VHS tape.
Following his shocking suicide, Robin’s close friend Harvey Fierstein was being interviewed. Did anyone know Robin was depressed enough to hang himself with a belt?
Harvey tweeted the real lesson: “Please, people, do not f*ck with depression. It’s merciless. All it wants is to get you in a room alone and kill you.”
That’s when I learned what depression is. I hadn’t been shone those depths in my own life. Believe it or not, I still don’t think I have. What I have been fucking with lately though— is shame. And, my God. Shame loves nothing more than fucking right back.
Shame slowly ties my hands behind me. Asks me why I’m not working harder, or moving faster. Shame puts a cold finger to my lips to quiet my suffering. Asks me why I have no one to share the depths of my pain with. Shame makes me wonder if I designed an entire life and career to bring the light— if only to rebel against dying alone in the darkness.
This is the Winter of my unraveling. The winter of my grief. The winter of my transformation. If you feel like you just entered a goth party, you are welcome. Grab some black licorice and some black coffee. I got zero fucks to give about anyone’s comfort level.
Shame applauds while we’re glowing in the dark. Five minutes later, when the theatre empties, it reminds you how unlovable you are. It was all a trick of light. This can be hard for the people who love me, and for who I love to read. There is nothing you did, or didn’t do. This is between me and my shame. I’m either allowing it to grow in the darkness, or I’m bringing it into the light.
My shame lived dormant in millions of weed spores, in the soil of my psyche. Waiting for the next trigger, or the next emotion I wasn’t willing to feel. Someday we wonder how weeds became vines. Became rusty chains on our souls. Shame was trying to fly, with anchors for anklets.
Enough.
At the moment, I’m in no place to share the symptoms of my suffering. The content of my shame. Please don’t ask. Just know my river is always flowing. Like all of ours is. Sometimes with light and magic. Other times, with dead fish and car tires. It might make interesting reading, but it belongs to me and my circle of healers. In coaching, the river of our lives is less interesting. It’s how we relate to that river, and what we intend to do about crossing it.
What I hope we learn today, is what suffering is teaching me—
As we move through life, we need to build a grief toolkit. We should prioritize this toolkit over our retirement savings. To live, is to love. To love, is to eventually grieve. Grief often includes shock and devastation. And in our darkest, most tender moments our shame waits to console us.
Except, shame is the shittiest grief counselor. It got its degree from a vape shop, in the strip mall of our self-loathing.
In the Goonies, young gadget boy Data points his flashlight at the kissing teenagers and says: “Shame, shame! I know you’re name!”
This is our moment, and I need you to see it.
When I am showing you what Data teaches us about shame. It doesn’t have to take a suicide (and please know that I, and everyone we love is fine). We gotta shine the light of our awareness on shame. See it as distinct— from the feelings that serve us, and the shame which wants to get us alone in a room. As I work The 4 Permissions in my own life, my breakthroughs occur in Permission 2, To Feel All the Feels. As you can tell, it can be a dark, and scary cave.
But I have my Goonies. There's a treasure down here, and we have a map to save the Goondocks. Nothing lights the cave quite like a mantra, spoken in Sanskrit, or better yet, chanted fervently into our darkness:
Om anirhudhyaha namaha. (Ohm AH-knee-rude-d’YAH-ha Nah-muh-ha)
The Divine Light glows through me, with brilliance. Say that 108 times. Better yet, sing it into every cell of your being to drive back the shame.
Our tiny, bold move today is to take 108 spins of that mantra (Om anirhudhyaha namaha) around the length of your mala. Do it for you, and everyone you love. If that includes me, then by all means, send it my way too.
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