Shame has come up a lot this week for me as a point of discussion, but it has been a point of meditation for me for 13 years next month when, in Karachi, Pakistan, I discovered that I was pregnant without a wedding ring on my finger. When my mother heard my news, she said, Have the baby. Come home. When my father learned of my pregnancy, he wrote me a simple email: I love you. To me, love is one of the emotions that transcends shame. He added: Allah is raheem. Allah is rehman. God is merciful. God is forgiving. Whatever divine spirit in which you believe, if even you do, what I learned is that it is inside our own conscience that we must extend ourselves kindness, compassion and certainty for the actions we undertake, the words we utter and the thoughts we contemplate. None of us is perfect. I am the most imperfect of all. Just look at my pile of dirty dishes to know. But when we strive to live without shame we achieve courage, confidence and voice. I write to you at this moment because I got well-intentioned counsel to let shaming occur without notice, and I say: No. Everyone deserves to live fully-realized lives as human beings, living not scripts inherited or forced upon us, through tactics of bullying and shaming, but scripts of our own choosing.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:06:29 +0000
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