The comedian Margaret Cho once joked about trying to figure out if she’s gay or straight, since she’s enjoyed sex with men and women. She ends the bit by saying “So I finally figured out that I’m just a slut.…Where’s my parade?”
June is a month of parades and rainbows. You’ve probably heard people saying “Happy Pride!” because it’s Gay Pride Month, or more accurately LGBTQ+ Pride Month.
So Happy Pride to everyone who identifies as LGBTQ+!
Actually, gay people have been really genius in turning shame to pride. In the Holocaust, gay people were put into concentration camps and tortured and killed along with Jewish people. You know that the Nazis used a yellow star pinned to the clothing to indicate that someone was Jewish. Did you know a pink triangle was used to indicate that someone was gay?
You’re probably more familiar with the pink triangle as a symbol of gay people standing proud and fighting back against prejudice, especially if you remember the 80s and 90s, when AIDS ravaged the gay community, and pink triangles were everywhere (at least in NYC).
That’s because gay people stood shame on its head, seized their power back, and made the pink triangle a symbol of pride instead of stigma. (Now you see rainbows more, because there are so many lovely variations or colors of sexuality, not just gay or straight.)
We (whether straight, gay or non-binary) can learn a lot from this awesome example the gay community has given us around what to do with shame.
Because so many of us have carried that heavy iron ball, shame, in our gut, our hearts, our shoulders, our pelvis, our head – maybe around our sexuality, maybe around something else deeply significant in our lives.
Guilt is a heavy feeling of “I did something wrong.”
Shame is an even heavier “I AM wrong.”
When you feel guilty, you can usually relieve your guilt by apologizing and promising to never do that again. But if you feel shame? Shame is in every cell.
It’s hard to get away from shame because it sort of is you… or you think it is.
Our natural reaction to shame is to distract ourselves and others from shame. We try to disappear altogether, erase ourselves, we go quiet, stay home.
Or we get all flamboyant around some other aspect of ourselves; we point everyone’s attention in another direction, “Look how pretty I am/ how smart I am/ how great at sports I am/ how much I don’t care about anyone or anything….”
But you can’t outrun shame. You have to learn, thoroughly and painstakingly and surprisingly and joyfully, that there was never anything wrong with you in the first place.
Once you find someone (or maybe even a whole community) who sees the beauty of you, the awesomeness of you, not just parts of you but all of you… that’s when there’s no space for shame.
That’s when pride comes in. That’s when shame is seen, given a little talking to, and walked out the door. Let’s follow the example of the gay community and seize back our power, our dignity, and turn shame on its crappy little head. Turn it into pride. See ourselves for who we really are, not for what the world has judged us and shamed us and fooled us into thinking we are.
Margaret Cho was right about one thing: we all deserve a pride parade, even if it’s just in our living room with our cats. We all deserve to be seen, accepted, loved, proud.
I hope you see you. Not the you that’s been shamed and quieted and distracted, but the you who was born amazing and was forced to forget that somewhere along the way.
I help people see themselves. I help people walk shame out the door. If you’re interested in that, let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together.
I do 1:1 work if you want that, or I have a wonderful little coaching community of amazing women who are leaving old patterns of beliefs and energy behind and becoming their most powerful selves.
It’s called Emerge and it’s way cool! If you’ve worked on yourself with me or someone else before, this is a great way to continue that work.
Either way, let’s chat. Click here to schedule a free 45-minute Get Unstuck Zoom to see what you need to leave behind and how I can be of assistance:
One thing that’s pretty famous for creating shame is high-control religion. Although its intentions are great, it’s unintentionally caused a lot of shame for many of us, including me. Maybe we should start a Redefine the Divine Month!
But till then, watch my Upcoming Events Page for my free Masterclass, Redefine the Divine: Losing Your Religion.
There, we’ll explore the 4 pillars needed to release fear, guilt, and rejection and rediscover your true connection to the Divine. It’s free, and it will be on a Wednesday, at 12:30pm.