Anami Grace | Made Up Life

We cannot ask shame to do what only love can accomplish.

I was scrolling on instagram yesterday and I came across this post that suggested that we start shaming people for their political beliefs. And the quietest shadow in my mind simply said “no”. That’s not right.

I sat there frozen for a minute because I’d never heard this voice speak to me before. So I asked her what she needed to say and she said that by shaming people we tell ourselves it’s unsafe to evolve.

Ma’am. Excuse me. Who are you and why are you in my head being right?

She was. In fact. Right. Bitch.

Because I wouldn’t be the dynamic, rich, kind, loving, generous, expansive human being without my nearly 20 year stint in Evangelicalism. The deep rooted love that I experience of life came to me in the words of Jesus: love one another. Love your neighbor as yourself. The greatest command I give to you is to love the world.

But not like this. Not in some two sided political debate that doesn’t transform shit. Or a third worse option that just holds you wrong in a different font.

And the journey from a bumper sticker on a Prius in Portland that said “Oh! Look! Honey! Another Prolifer for war.” And how I just happened to have been in the back seat of my car looking at my second adopted my kid and I looked at her and knew. That my all of my beliefs were now a little wobbly because that humor cut right past my own cognitive dissonance into the reality that I couldn’t ever wish for some other mom to bury her baby because she was a different brand of religion than I was.

And the harmony of realizing that without that experience. Without all of these pieces of me that the world tells me I should hold in shame because they weren’t the right brand of *gestures vaguely* are the very pieces that are my favorite.

Because they understand what it feels like to BE in a cult. We’ve been in 4 if you count capitalism. And the compassion I feel for myself. The love I feel for the parts of me that were entrapped in a belief system that was so pervasive it made it into my wedding vows and traumatized me into believing that if I ever got divorced that all of the people who attended my wedding would go to hell.

The fear, the uncertainty. The pain, the programming. Was all there to be dismantled through my spiritual healing journey. And tapping into universal love that doesn’t give a flying fuck who someone marries. Only that you’re alive to marry them and a hope that you’re happier in marriage than I was. LOL (It’s my millennial support LOL – contact my agent with any complaints.)

Evangelicalism caught me as my grandpa tried to end his life but ended up dying of complications of brain cancer. Y’all. My grandpa was my person. My ONLY person in my childhood that could tell me that he loved me in a way that a) didn’t upset the beast in my mother and b) that I could consistently hear in my childhood. And when that love no longer existed in my world, I was susceptible to a promise that love had died for my dirty rotten sins.

Which. Let’s be honest. I was 17. My sin was wanting to have sex.

And they either get you in your trauma or your youth. It just so happened that I got caught in my trauma. And it coincided with an evolution burst when I was seventeen, so it looked like it was because of Jesus. But in reality it was just the first time that I’d had control over pleasure. Which is a real tool for transformation. Right?

Like if life feels wonderful, if you can make your body feel good, if you can hold wonderful things, experience wonderful things, and create wonderful things. It changes your life.

But shame. Is a terrible tool for transformation. Right? We cannot punish, shame, fear, or bait someone into authentic and lasting change. Only love can do that.

ONLY LOVE CAN DO THAT. Only love changes people from the inside out.

People will never be argued into lasting and authentic change. No amount of debate has ever changed anyone’s mind, and we cannot hold people who disagree with us as those that deserve less.

But it starts inside of us. It starts by taking such incredible care of YOUR human body that you feel the fierceness of your own love and kindness. It requires a sacrifice of everything unaligned. And costs you everything to hold. But is a gift to you, and to the world.

I came here. I incarnated on this planet to never be understood, only to hold understanding and hold it as a beacon of hope and kindness so that maybe if you were curious enough in the fun I was having, that you could unwrap my understanding and try on my words for a moment to see if they fit any part of your experience.

But. Y’all. We cannot ever shame someone out of their programming. Only love positioned with curiosity and kindness can do that.

Anyway. Love and light to you all. Take Care. Bye.