volume: buy me a slice bonus #1

crying shame

In a recent Sunday post, I mentioned that I want to give you more of what you want and that thanks to some very generous readers, I am putting the power in your hands. You may have read (or heard) in my main post's outro that I mention hi, lauren deborah! will always be free but if you like you can buy me a slice 🍕 — and each time I hit my goal set in this pizza piggy bank,  I will release a bonus volume with the subject chosen by YOU, the readers!

With big thanks to Lou, Kimberly, Immaculate and My Younger Cooler Cousin for your support, I opened the comments for ideas.

Side note, if you missed this and still want to join the discussion, you can suggest inspiration for another time, you never know when I might pull from it and am so grateful to know what you’d like to see more of. Or you can always ask me a question (anonymously is an option) that I will answer in a future post.

There were some great suggestions but there was one I just couldn’t stop thinking about: What are some things you were taught were shameful but now know they are not?

Oof. This is such a good question. It forces me to think of past shame and sit with it and notice patterns. It is also a lovely question because I can sit here, with great pride knowing that I was able to shed any shame and live my truest life in regard to all of these things. I sit here doing that despite anyone’s best efforts to shame me.

Brené Brown defines shame as an “intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging”. Read that again. It’s a belief of unworthiness that we experience, really due to the words, opinions or judgement of another.

Y’all know I love a good list, so here is a list of things I was taught were shameful. Taught either directly or indirectly. Now I know they are not.

• Sex, talking about sex, enjoying sex, initiating sex, wanting sex, exploring sex

• Wanting to pursue a calling over the biggest paycheck

• Sleeping in

• Ice cream for dinner

• The size and shape of my body

• Periods (+ the inability to do anything else but writhe when cramps come along)

• Not wanting to be a mother

• My sexual orientation — which the shame I held for so long hindered me from exploring it earlier and has left me in a constant state of feeling “left behind”

• Body hair

• Being a woman

• Feeling lonely vs being alone

• My obsessive love for tv show characters

• I was often told my large features were something to be ashamed of: my nose, mouth, teeth, and eyes. Now I see my grandparents when I see my face

• Not getting something right the first time around, not having all the answers, making mistakes

• Having to say no to something because I cannot afford it

• Having a loud voice

• I take lots of photos and refuse to be teased for that now because that stops when I send you cute pics of yourself

• Changing my mind

• Mental health — in all its ups and downs

• For the amount of my adult life that I have been single vs in a relationship

• Being too scared of scary movies

• My scars, spending I don’t know how many hundreds of dollars on so-called magic creams to perfect myself when there was never any need

• Thrift shopping because it was all I could afford

• Thrift shopping that led to my own style that went from shame and snarky comments to pride and confidence

• My large appetite — I’ll eat what I want, thank you

• Asking for help

• Not knowing what people are talking about and having to ask questions or do some research or look it up before wanting to contribute to the conversation

• My obsessive cleaning

• My sobriety (which may surprise readers given how much I write about it, but I kept it secret for a while until someone thankfully told me how much easier it is to stay sober if I talk about it, not sure they meant to write about it but I digress)

• Being confident — especially as a woman — in my career, in my talents, in my successes, in my wins, in myself…

• Talking about my feelings

• I take time and care to fall in love with you and I take my time to move past that and that is who I am and I am amazing for it (needed this to happen more than once for me to move past shame and into acceptance of “taking too long” to get over a breakup)

• Saying no because I don’t feel like it — it is a perfectly acceptable reason

This list is in no particular order. This list is not complete. This list is a constant work in progress.

What will you add to it for yourself? Let me know in the comments.

I love you,

LD

xoxo

hi, lauren deborah! is free for subscribers every week. feel I am not sharing enough? ask me a question and I will answer it in a future post.

if you would like to say thanks for this love letter, please like or comment (it means so much to me to hear from you 🧡), forward it to a friend who might enjoy it or if you’d like to, you can buy me a slice 🍕