Photo by Irene Giunta on Unsplash

Stepping Out of Shame, Into Home

The cure for shame is to be vulnerable with someone else who is equally vulnerable.

I’m writing this as an experiment in human connection. It’s about shame, the force that severs connection between me and other people, between me and the divine. It’s about my slow, aching turn toward home. Shame told me I didn’t have a spiritual home. Healing is leading me, slowly, hesitant step by misstep, by failure, by rising, by decades, to come out. To come out as myself. Home is found in the parts of “me” I long ago abandoned because of shame.

I write with respect for the sacredness of my own humanity, and I reach toward the hearts of those who’ll read it. Without ever meeting, we can resonate together through written language.

Shame is, oh, so human. We’ve all felt it scald us. Societally, it’s a kind of glue. The fear of ostracism serves as an ethical boundary, keeping us from hurting one another. For every person who actually attempts to pull of a Ponzi scheme, there are probably many more who dream of it, but the potential shame and harm to loved ones is enough to stop them, even without the threat of jail time.

For those of us who had to navigate growing up in traumatizing environments, internalized shame is a core experience. Home wasn’t really home, yet at…