Hello love.
It's been a while since a new blog has been published. I'm not going to apologize. I am in fact only human.
I'd like to talk to you about shame. One of the most horrendous five letter words that I can think of. Shame steals from you. Shame makes you small. Shame sucks your life-energy from you. Shame is never ceasing until you are able to forgive yourself for what put you there in the first place.
The definition from the Oxford Dictionary: shame
[SHām]
NOUN a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior: "she was hot with shame" · "he felt a pang of shame at telling Alice a lie" SIMILAR: humiliation, mortification, chagrin, ignominy, loss of face
These past few months I've been in a deep depression. And just last week I learned my depression was caused by feeling shame. I believe this to be only the second time in my life that I've had this emotion take over me. The first was during my childhood after being molested by my step-monster. Someone I so wanted to be my dad because I never knew the one who helped bring me into this world.
This last time was the potential threat of losing my marriage due to mistakes I had made and trust I had broken. Fear of losing the one person I most loved and wanted to stay in my life. A love like I have not known before.
Shame set in. It took over. It consumed me. I retreated from myself, my family, my work, my God. I stopped smiling. I stopped talking. I stopped trying. I became a shell of what makes me, me.
What I knew from all these years of working on myself, therapy, reading, listening and learning was that I needed to reach out for help and so I did. I've been seeing a therapist again weekly, taking medication, and doing the work to uncover why I was feeling this way. And now I'm on the road to recovery by forgiving myself for what I didn't know how to do. For being afraid to say the things I needed to say. For not asking for help when I needed it. For giving to others over the needs of my own family.
My life has not been an easy one. Because of that I am able to give back all the lessons I have learned to you. It has uncovered my passion, my purpose, my reason for being here. I'm looking forward to continuing to share and learn and grow alongside you love.
With gratitude,
Kimberly xo
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