Posts Tagged ‘shame’

Read banned memoirs: Criminal or Social Activist?

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

by Jerry Waxler

In the 60’s, I vigorously protested the Vietnam War, but like most Americans I thought the organization called the Weather Underground had gone too far. Without knowing many details, I associated them with violent, irrational extremism.

So I was surprised to hear that one of the founders of that organization was not only a free man. He was an acclaimed educator. I first heard about Bill Ayers during the 2008 presidential campaign when television ads implied that Ayers’ criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam somehow tainted Barack Obama. The publicity intrigued me. I wanted to know more. After hearing an excellent radio interview with Bill Ayers, I decided to read his memoir “Fugitive Days.” Reading the book prodded me to review rusty old parts of my own beliefs.

When Ayers was a young man, his outrage against the war drove him to the brink of anarchy. In his memoir, “Fugitive Days,” he chronicles his violent thoughts and actions in almost poetic detail. Even after reading the memoir, it’s hard for me to decide if he was a hero who risked his life to save the world from the insanity of war, or a mad child, a criminal, bent on imposing his will on society. And therein lays the power of the memoir. It shows his world as it was, not as it ought to have been, allowing me to see for myself and ask my own questions. The description of life through his eyes provided a deeper understanding of the world than I could gain from sound bites and stereotypes.

Are young people idealistic or simple minded?

When I was young, adults taught me that people are supposed to be kind, generous, and empathetic. I desperately wanted to live in a world driven by these ideals. Too often, the difference between the world they preached and the one they actually offered made me angry. So I protested, trying to badger them into following their own principles. However, demanding change turned out to be far more complex than I first had hoped. After I participated in my first riot, I realized I was contributing to the very chaos that I wanted to stop.

The protest movement became increasingly strident at my alma mater, University of Wisconsin in Madison, until a climax in the1970 bombing of the Army Math Research Center. At 3 AM, when the bombers expected the building to be empty, a young physics researcher unrelated to the Army or the war was killed by the blast, exposing the dark side of extreme protest. More disturbing still, moral outrage against government policies can be used to justify all sorts of violent protest. For example, the Oklahoma City bombers claimed they were obeying higher principles, a justification that comes all too close to the reasoning of the Weather Underground.

According to Ayers, his group never took part in an action that resulted in a death, so the book does not justify murder. In fact, the book does very little justifying at all. Rather than analyzing his actions, or even looking back at them with the hindsight of an older man, Ayers offers an immersion experience in that period. Just as you wouldn’t expect to see cell phones in a movie about the Vietnam War, Ayers also tries to keep his thoughts appropriate for a young man during the height of the Vietnam war protests.

Feminism was still in the future

In Bill Ayers’ time the feminist movement had not yet been born, so during his story, men were freely using women and justifying it with all sorts of theoretical excuses. Women were starting to complain, and in a rare nod to the future development of the feminist movement, Ayers hints at the tensions coming to the surface.

Structure is interesting: In Medias Res
The organizational structure of the book is interesting. The opening scene pulls me in with a bang. Ayers and his cronies are on the run, and they hear about the death of a comrade, letting me know they are all in mortal danger. This technique of “in medias res,” or starting in the midst of the action, is as old as storytelling itself. Once the initial scene pulls us in, he backs up and starts from the beginning. Then gradually the story moves closer to the tragedy, and then keeps going, to his fugitive life, and on to completion.

Is shame supposed to be hidden?

In the memoir, “This Boy’s Life” Tobias Wolff writes about some really bad decisions from his youth, like throwing eggs at the driver of a convertible car and stealing stuff from his step-dad. He does not apologize or justify. He simply describes. When I first read “This Boy’s Life,” I was shocked that he would be willing to talk about these obnoxious behaviors. How does that work? I hated remembering when I did shameful things like shoplifting. Uck. It feels horrible to admit that I ever did such a thing. Similarly Ayers reports many behaviors that one would hope one’s teenage son or daughter is not doing. However, now that I have been reading memoirs for a while, I am no longer so shocked.

My more tolerant and expansive understanding of how to remember bad choices came during a lecture by John Bradshaw, the brilliant author of a number of books about healing. In the lecture, Bradshaw explained that there are two kinds of shame. Of course I knew about “bad shame.” The new information came from his description of “good shame,” a beautiful and redeeming concept I had never considered.  Good shame serves a positive purpose. When you’re ashamed of something you’ve done, it’s your mind attempting to restore you to obey your own rules. So shame is a good thing, enforcing people to do their best. When people are “shameless” they can be rude or deceive each other without remorse. The absence of shame is the real anti-social condition.

Actually, not only is Ayers not ashamed of his actions. He even flips it upside down, and points a sense of shame back at the rest of society. He doesn’t feel shame for having protested the war. He feels shame for having participated in a country that was waging the war, and for example, dropping Napalm on babies. Wow! That fascinating twist makes me think long and hard about my own role as a citizen in a country that does a variety of things I wish they would do differently.

On every page, Ayers awakened memories of my own angst in the sixties. His experience stretched me to review my attitude towards social responsibility, and then, as I followed his trajectory, watched the terrifying consequences of his extreme position. It was an amazingly thought provoking and successful book.

 
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Let Your Memoir Take You to the Fourth Step

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

by Jerry Waxler

The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended was held in the basement of a church. I sat in my car until the meeting was about to start and then slipped in, hoping no one would notice. It wasn’t my idea to be there. The professor of my addictions counseling class at Villanova had assigned us the task of attending.

The speaker told her story of descending into the pit of alcoholism, losing her marriage, home, and children, and finally selling her body. Thanks to the Twelve Steps, she had been able to pull herself together. When I left the meeting that night, in addition to a renewed appreciation for the havoc that can be wreaked by substances, I also had witnessed one of our culture’s great institutions, dedicated to helping people in desperate situations build up their self-esteem and life-skills.

While I am not addicted to substances, there have been many times in my life when I felt out of control, like my years struggling with loneliness and depression, or coming to terms with the barrage of news about war, divisive politics, poverty, and disease. While I have a variety of tools to help me cope, occasionally I wish there was a Twelve Step meeting to overcome everyday feelings of being out of control.

Although I have not found an actual Twelve Step program for ordinary situations, I do see analogs that could serve some of the same purposes. The method of self-help pervading all civilizations since the beginning of history is the quest for support from a Higher Power. There are lots of meetings that can help us seek that transcending connecction. Another powerful offering of the Twelve Step programs are slogans, such as “give me the courage to change what I can and accept what I can’t” and “one day at a time.” All of us could benefit from uplifting phrases, because the things you say to yourself affect how you feel.

Now, as I study memoir writing, I believe I have stumbled upon another connection with the Twelve Steps. The Fourth Step says, “We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” The goal of taking this inventory is to replace vague sorrows of “having messed up,” with more detailed information. It’s an important exercise for addicts who, in their pressure to obtain the next buzz, overrode their conscience more often than they would like to remember.

However, addicts do not hold a monopoly on regrets. Everyone bumps against things they wish they hadn’t done. As long as unpleasant memories remain tucked away, there is no way to learn from them. The Fourth Step suggests you pry them out of hiding. Once they’re in the open, you can work with them consciously, discover the details, find the implications, and then integrate the past into the complete picture of who you are and how you got here. This self-knowledge strengthens your ability to move more confidently into the present and future, and opens channels of compassion and connection with the people in your life.

The Twelve Step Programs started from inspired revelation, a seed planted by people desperate to find something more powerful than their addiction. In the following half a century, tens of thousands of people harvested the results of that inspiration. And as each generation learns, they arm themselves to help the next. To rescue their fallen comrades from the cauldron of addiction, perhaps one of the most selfish tendencies of human nature, these people have discovered within themselves one of the generous tendencies of human nature – the desire to help each other overcome challenges.

Memoir writers don’t belong to an elaborate step-by-step system of guidance and mutual support. When we take our moral inventory, we do it hunkered down alone at our desk. It sounds isolated. However, memoir writers turn towards another powerful resource. Our mentors are those writers who have gone before us, placing their lives on paper and leaving it for us in books. Reading memoir after memoir we witness the story, discovering lessons not just about the author’s lifetime but about their willingness to write it. Following their lead, we arrange and rearrange our own conglomeration of memories, until we too arrive at that system known as Story, a system as old as civilization itself.

When we tell about our history, when we hurt people or they hurt us, or resented, or misunderstood, or all the thousands of interactions we have with people, storytelling goes beyond initial emotions. We expand our thinking, and more clearly see all the characters in our lives, who they are and what the world looks like from their point of view.

Memoir writing is a powerful Step for anyone who wants to grow more resilient to face those things over which they have no control. As you write, you transform the past from a collection of memories into a path that goes from sin to redemption, from tragedy to grieving, from one step to the next step and the next. Stories are large enough to contain great mistakes and even evil, and their power goes beyond the individual. Through reading and writing, our stories intertwine, healing ourselves and our relationships, and leaving behind a map that can help others find their own way through the journey of life.

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Mothers and Daughters Don’t Always Mix

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

by Jerry Waxler

Linda Joy Myers’ mother wanted to have fun, so she abandoned her little girl and moved from the Great Plains to the big city of Chicago. Linda Joy was raised by her grandmother, an erratic woman given to harsh rules enforced by rage. Linda Joy grew up with a heavy load of disheartening memories.

After years of therapy, trying to sort out her feelings about her self-involved and mentally abusive caregivers, she began to write it all down. That first attempt turned out to be the beginning of a long journey. She tried again and again, and with each iteration, her story became more readable and less toxic than the one before. It took fifteen years from her first attempt to the publication of her memoir, “Don’t Call Me Mother.”

This book demonstrates the power of persistence. By crafting the story until she got it right, Linda Joy Myers discovered amidst the wreckage of that little girl’s childhood an intact human being, complete with courage, confidence, and dreams. Storytelling transformed her heartbreaking childhood into one stage in a much longer saga. Her suffering and then her healing provide both a tragedy and an inspiration about the wisdom a human can achieve in one life time.

In the preface of “Don’t Call Me Mother” she says, “Wrestling with words and images, putting myself into the story as a character, in the first person, present tense, forced me to integrate the self that I was with the witness I have become. This memoir has given me a profound sense of completion with the past, and a wonderful freedom. As I healed through the writing of this book, it too has evolved into a love song… The women who had once been my curses — my eccentric, wild, emotion-wracked mother and grandmother-became my teachers.”

Click here for Linda Joy Myers’ home page:
Click here for the Amazon page for her book:

I joined the author on her healing journey
Even if she had not told me that writing the book helped her heal, I can feel it for myself. I join this little girl, cringing with her during Grandma’s rages, and feeling relieved when they go on their annual trip to visit great grandmother, her mother’s mother’s mother, the most stable figure in Linda Joy’s childhood. Looking for sighs of relief, of beauty and pride, I pour my heart into each moment of pleasure – her passion for cello playing; the encouragement of her music teacher; her first boy friend, a fellow musician; the wheat fields, like golden oceans, that offer a sense of unlimited space.

As she begins to plan for college I lean forward into the future with her, straining towards escape from her stifling childhood, and longing for the day when she will be old enough and balanced enough to write the book I hold in my hands. Imagining that day converts horror to hope, knowing that the little girl grew up to write this story.

Breaking the code of silence
In addition to rejection by her mother and erratic and often abusive behavior of her grandmother, Linda Joy also fended off inappropriate sexual advances from her father during his annual visit. The people who gave her life used their power to confuse and undermine her. And like most abused kids, she learned the code of silence.

I have heard many people in memoir workshops struggle with such memories, explaining, “I wouldn’t want to talk about my family in that way. It would be disrespectful.” Their reticence followed them into adulthood and continues to foster their shame.

Linda Joy’s mastery over her secrets, provides an inspiring example for any writer who longs to create a whole story from disturbing raw material. Such a journey towards openness takes you across treacherous internal terrain, overcoming the fears and confusion that have always protected these secrets.  Then, you face additional challenges from people who don’t want to hear about child abuse. “Who wants to know things like that?” “That can’t be true.” “You’re exaggerating.” “You’re making excuses.” Only gradually do the walls of shame and secrecy break down. Through experimentation, the stories make sense, expose wounds, let in light, and integrate the past in one continuous whole that brings you to a healthier present and increases your enthusiasm for the future.

The reader and writer look for common ground
When you pick up a book, any book, you naturally ask yourself, “Why should I share my time and energy walking in this author’s shoes on this particular journey?” Of course, all readable books contain some crucial elements. They use polished prose, create dramatic tension, and then successfully resolve that tension. “Don’t Call Me Mother” succeeds in all these standard areas. In addition to generic qualities, each book has particular virtues. For me, the virtue of “Don’t Call Me Mother” is that through the magic of storytelling she brings her childhood to life, and then transforms it in front of my eyes. I share the story of her abuse, and then as she grows, I share the triumph of her eventual self-understanding.

The writer also asks questions. “How do I find and please my audience?” Another way to ask this question is “Who will want to read my book, and why?” The writer’s questions turn out to be mirrors of the ones asked by readers. When the writer’s answer matches the reader’s, two people who have never met are ready to spend hours in each other’s company.

Writing Prompt
Discovering why someone will read your story becomes part your quest as you try to open your life to the reading public. Describe the person who will read your book, and what questions or curiosities would your book address?

Another question, perhaps less obvious but just as important is, “Who will not want to read this book?” Since most of us would like to be loved by everyone, it might be hard to admit that not everyone is going to become a fan. By working out in advance who is not going to be one of your readers, you can focus more on pleasing the people who like you and letting the others read some other book.

Out of triumph, the desire to help others
In addition to helping herself, Linda Joy’s passion for finding the story of her own life has evolved into a passion to help others do the same. She offers individual counseling in the Berkeley area, teaches workshops, and has founded The National Association of Memoir Writers, an internet organization, that brings memoir writers together, and offers instruction and programs to help people take the journey of developing their own memoir.

For many years, Linda Joy dropped the “Joy” from her name, feeling it didn’t accurately reflect her character. Recently she has reintroduced it, choosing to allow the quality of happiness back into her name. While her memoir contains many deep and painful moments, her book reminds me of John Kennedy who said, “The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.” According to this definition, Linda Joy’s life offers all of us cause for joyful celebration.

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“Good shame” improves memories

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

By Jerry Waxler

(This blog is also available as an audio file. See the Podcast player control at the end of this post.)

John Bradshaw and Kip Flock are offering another workshop near Philadelphia on November 6-8. For more information call (215) 331-1814.

One Friday night in 2007, I drove 50 miles to Philadelphia to hear a lecture by John Bradshaw, the author of bestsellers “Homecoming” and “Healing the Shame that Binds You.” He has been writing about shame for so long the Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed him the Shaman of Shame. Despite his world-class credentials, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend an evening learning about this edgy topic when I could be relaxing at home. But curiosity prevailed, and I’m glad I went. The evening’s insights have helped me answer some of the deepest mysteries of my life. My powerful ah-ha resulted from Bradshaw’s simple observation that there are two types of shame.

The nasty variety of shame is the one I have always run away from. This disturbing emotion creates a crashing loss of self-worth. I’ve always hated this feeling so completely that I thought in order to be a good person I had to completely eradicate it from my mind. Experts like Bradshaw believe the self-loathing of shame creates much of the suffering in the world, giving people an excuse to hurt themselves and each other.

The insight Bradshaw offered me was to see that shame also has a positive function. When I see this emotion through Bradshaw’s compassionate eyes I recognize that when it is good, this feeling helps me maintain humility, avoid anti-social behavior, and reel me back from mistakes. Bradshaw uses the analogy of cholesterol, which comes in two forms. The bad one clogs your heart and can kill you, and the good one protects your blood vessels from damage and can save you. This clever analogy has already helped me reformulate my hatred for shame, allowing me to look past its ugly exterior.

This lesson is especially valuable for me now that I am researching my memoir. As I scavenge through the past looking for material, I turn over many rocks, and I don’t always like what I find. My first inclination is to replace the rock and back away. This is an especially enticing option considering the fear, “If you reveal this part of yourself, people will despise you.” If I listen carefully to this warning, I end up hiding all the things that make me human. When I remember my teenage years for example, my mind is clouded by this fear, and I try to stuff my memories back down into the darkness. But I’m tired of running away from own humanity. I want to explore what it has meant to be me. With some exposure to the light, the pain eases and I accept parts of myself I have been avoiding for decades.

Take for example shoplifting. This was especially evil for me, since my dad owned a drugstore. If I thought it through, I would have hated shoplifters. However, as a 12-year-old, I didn’t think it through. And after the deed was accomplished, I didn’t know what to do with the disgust and fear that accompanied each stolen ballpoint pen or candy bar. I buried those feelings, and every time they lurch into view they reduce my sense of self-worth. Nearly fifty years later, in light of Bradshaw’s insight, I look again.

Now I realize feeling disgusted with myself was part of the emotional package that steered me away from that behavior. So now, instead of running away from the memory, I talk myself down from the self-anger, annoyance and secrecy and gradually more details emerge from their dirty hiding place. I see myself furtively glancing over my shoulder. Will I be caught? (How comical that I didn’t know my furtive glances could be interpreted by an intuitive observer.) I listen to my tense, confused, almost dopey thought process, and hear my confusion. “Why am I doing this? It doesn’t feel like me.” I see a young boy experimenting with the rules of property and power. And now I even see hope, because there is an inner voice that is trying to convince me to do better. Shame formerly seemed like a tattoo that would mark me to my dying day. Now I see that it can fade, and I can grow.

While I expand my insight into the relatively innocuous shame of a good boy being bad, there are all sorts memories that can cause memoir writers to shy away from their past, some of them so horrific they seem outside the range of human decency; cheating, betraying, chaos on the battlefield, teenage pranks that went too far, crimes. I recently read a memoir “Ten Points” by Bill Strickland. When he remembered his father’s psychological abuse, he hated not his father but himself. Like many abused children, he thought the situation was his own fault, because if he had tried harder he should have been able to stop the torture. The memories made him feel filthy, and as an adult, he determined to break their hold. His victory came within reach when he realized the horror was “just shame.” Once he found a label, he was able to pry back the curtain and gain control over emotions that threatened to destroy him. His experience is a good example of the positive power John Bradshaw is offering anyone who wants to heal from the pain of humiliation or self-doubt or disgust with their own memories.

I drove down to John Bradshaw’s meeting prepared to face the thing I feared the most. Two hours later, as I walked back to my car, I felt lifted, perceiving hope where there was previously only disgust. I had been given a light that would help me learn from my past, give me more compassion for other people, and would let me share myself with more energy and understanding.

Note:

The John Bradshaw lecture was hosted by Acorn, and produced by Dolores Proto, the director of a recovery house in Philadelphia. Learn more about the Acorn organization here: http://www.foodaddiction.com/index.html. This organization runs programs designed to help people cope with overeating, food addiction, and other shame-based addictions.

For writers, shame holds an additional challenge. Exposing one’s writing in public can feel daunting, especially considering that many writers are shy and would rather stay private. If you are one of the people who like me have resisted publishing because of the shame of shyness and self-exposure, or fear of rejection, see the section in my Four Elements for Writers book about Going Public.

Click here to see my full review of Bill Strickland’s memoir, Ten Points.

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Too many secrets hide my spark

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

by Jerry Waxler

(This blog is also available as an audio file. See the Podcast player control at the end of this post.)

When I was 12 years old, I used to sneak out by myself and set fire to autumn leaves. The excitement of the flames blinded me to the danger. Fortunately I never did any damage and was never caught, but now I look back on my actions with horror. I hate the way these memories make me feel, and generally avoid talking about things that make me sound like a criminal. As I work on my memoir, such memories confuse me. Should I include them or leave them out?

Of course I could pretend they never happened. But that solution perpetuates a problem I’ve been trying to overcome since I was a child. I used to believe that people weren’t supposed to have emotions, and I did my best to pretend I had none. The earliest example of this belief comes from seventh grade. I was scandalized when my fellow classmates burst into laughter over some sexual innuendo. How childish! To distance myself from humiliating feelings, I spent my teenage years doing homework or working at my dad’s drugstore. When I wanted a break, I read science fiction novels. This tendency to separate myself from emotions made me seem distant and aloof. I was in a sort of self-imposed exile from the human condition. It took years to break through my own walls.

Gradually with the help of therapy, a graduate program in counseling, and the support of compassionate friends, I learned that emotions are as necessary for a satisfying life as eating. I knew I was making progress when, in my fifties, I walked into the office at Villanova University’s graduate program in counseling psychology. Two of my tenured professors were experimenting with a remote controlled whoopee cushion. They roared with laughter every time the device let loose a simulated fart. I laughed along with them, perhaps not with their childlike glee, but at least I wasn’t horrified, the way I would have been when I was 12.

Now that I’m writing my memoir, I wrestle with every detail that was illegal, immoral, or embarrassing. It all seems so private, and yet it’s all part of my life. How do I decide? To do this right, I remember that the end product of my disclosure is not an encyclopedia. It’s a story. When Michelangelo was sculpting David, he started with a block of granite, and tossed away the rubble to expose the beauty hidden within. By writing a memoir I must discover the real me in a pleasing form.

I dredge through memories, not certain yet what to put in. At this stage, I’m just looking for the raw material. The most dramatic period was during my college years at the University of Wisconsin in Madison during the Vietnam War protests. My adult years are less colorful. I reminisce about my visit to the Great Pyramids on my 30th birthday, and then feel the frustration on my 31st birthday when my boss ordered me to help clean out the septic system.

I slip again into the turmoil of my adolescent years, and as I muse I notice a powerful connection. Around the same time I was in junior high school glowering at classmates for laughing at sexual references, I was sneaking out at night on secret missions to start fires. Wow. Freud claimed that if repressed emotions don’t come out one way they’ll come out another. My adolescence would have made a terrific demonstration of his point.

That’s interesting but must I write it in a memoir for all to see? My childhood preference tells me to skip the whole mess. But to sanitize my story means overriding decades of effort to break out of this shell. Without edgy moments, my memoir will be about a boring person. If I include them, I will be able to show the tension between what is and what can be. By acknowledging the messiness of the journey, I not only make myself appear more human. I discover some of the most exhilarating aspects of my experience. My imperfections are exactly what forced me to grow. Over the years I’ve been weak, confused, afraid. And it’s okay! That’s what drives me to become stronger, more accepting, smarter, and braver.

By releasing myself from my habit of secrecy, I learn about my own human nature, and can apply my learning to understand others. For example, my teenage misadventures help me appreciate the complexity of that period for other people as well. It turns out that sharing the authentic story can also forge intimate connections between people. When readers and writers share tales, we connect sublime parts of ourselves: our desire to learn, grow, love, and be loved.

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