It may not have been earth shattering and no one else even knew what was happening but when I recognized the shame I was feeling, what my reaction to it was and where it came from I felt so empowered!
My little one's hair was long and had a sweet little curl at the end. People commented on how lovely her hair was all the time. At the age of 2 and a half I had still not cut it. I knew that the ends were terribly uneven and so very thin with the last few strands of baby hair still clinging on but I loved the long hair. I loved that other people loved the long hair. I would make comments now and then about needing to cut it but I was never bold enough to just get it done.
Then, one day, I foolishly gave her gum, while we were driving in the car, to quiet a tantrum. It did the trick and I quickly forgot all about it. Later that night, her big sister looked at the back of her head with her hair all knotted up like a rats nest and asked, "What is that?" Of course, it was the gum, the perfect substance to wad a bazillion pieces of fine little hairs all up into one gob of yuck. There was no amount of rubbing ice or massaging peanut butter that was going to get this gum out of her hair. I was going to have to cut it. I acted like that was no big deal sense it really needed a cut anyway.
She was really great while I cut her hair; the whole thing went unusually smooth. I cut a little shorter than I had planned but it turned out pretty well and yet with each cut of hair a little piece of me fell to the floor. I could feel my stomach in knots and my heart beating just a little bit faster. I was a small mess by the end of it all.
Over the next few days, as people commented on her adorable hair cut, I repeatedly justified my actions by telling them that she had gotten gum in it so I had to cut it. Not one person asked why I had cut it; not one person lamented that the beautiful long locks were gone; they simply didn't notice or thought it was adorable and told me I did a good job. Every time, every single time, I said, "Well I had to cut it because she got a huge wad of gum in it and really left me with no choice." Sometimes, after telling the story, people would laugh and sometimes they just shrugged but what got me is that I had to make sure that they all knew that I did not want to cut her hair; it wasn't my choice; I didn't do it on purpose. Why did I care so much? Why did I feel the need to justify myself when no one else even wanted justification?
And then it hit me, "I am feeling shame!"
The need to justify, the flush of red in my checks, my over all twitchiness and awkward response - These was shame behaviors!
WHAT! SHAME!This is just a dang haircut - and I actually did a good job!
At first I felt shame for feeling shame over such a silly simple thing and tried to ignore the evidence but after failing at that I accepted the situation as a "Shame Challenge" and decided to plunge right in and figure out where the shame was coming from.
So let's see...
- No one had insulted me.
- No one had questioned my decision.
- No one had appeared to place judgement on me.
SO WHERE THE HECK IS THE SHAME COMING FROM?!
I decided to ask myself some different questions. Why was her long hair so important to me? What was it about her short hair that made me feel uneasy? As I pondered these questions, into my mind came a moment from my past:
As a young girl my mother had cut my hair very short as a punishment for repeatedly throwing a fit and not letting her brush it out or fix it. I had beautiful long hair and I got a lot of attention for it. My father was very disappointed when he saw it and was upset at my mother for making me look like a boy. Let me make something very clear - my mother was really not cruel at all. The hair cut wasn't some drama moment or any type of abuse and nor is my father a weirdo obsessed with long haired women - no this is no childhood horror story (sorry for being a little anticlimactic). But from this experience and small comments made from people through out my life, I got the impression at a very young age that in order to be pretty you need to have long hair and that paradigm has stuck with me all these years with out me even noticing!
At first the whole things seemed so ridiculous. Wait... the truth is I found it fascinating and I was so excited about it but even still I didn't want to share it with some one because it sounded so simple and dumb. I knew talking about it was going to be the pivoting point even though I didn't want to and so the next time I was tempted to justify the hair cut instead of simply acknowledge how cut it was I decided to share my new knowledge about my shame and need for justification and my flawed paradigm. In almost that very moment of speaking the story my paradigm shifted and the shame was gone. I, honestly, was so liberated and now I have no need to constantly be justifying. I can simply state that she got her hair cut and I love it.
There will be and are, plenty of times in my life where shame isn't so easily wrapped up in a silly story and gone, practically whisked away in a moment. No, sometimes we will notice shame triggers that take a life time to wrestle with, discover their origin and find peace with. But,this time, I was grateful for the validation I felt as I honestly worked through the shame. I now know I can trust the steps of noticing the signs of shame, identifying the trigger, and working through the situation from a social angel and a familial angel until I am able to identify the source of the shame - the story behind it. But the real power came from saying it all out loud! Telling someone about the shame and talking through it helped me recognize and shift my paradigm so I could see the truth, which is, obviously, the length of a person's hair does not indicate beauty and I did not steal my daughter's beauty by cutting her hair, in fact, I probably enhanced it! Let's be honest the hair cut really is so crazy cute!
You know, I think staring with little shame triggers is a good idea. I feel more confident about talking about shame and hopefully I will be able to keep building my understanding of my relationship with shame and it will just get easier and easier to go through the steps and working through the shame.
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