antidote for shame

I finally read week 3 of The Artist's Way. I read it a few days ago on the same day I started my daily lumps. Within that time I've had some insights. The word revelation or epiphany comes to mind actually. It feels big and yet I know that time will only tell me how much of this insight was a turning point. I read Cameron's part about shame while doing my funny dance with the information because I always have to maneuver around Cameron's tone and my own previous history with the material. Then this tapped me right between the eyes - I am ashamed of myself. I feel shame for not being farther along on my creative path. I feel shame for wasting so much of my time. I feel shame for not really knowing how to use my kiln and then for not really using it enough to learn how to use it. I got hit with all these little and big ways that I'm feeling shame - especially as it relates to my blockage with clay and my identity as an artist. It is hard to explain the depth and width of this insight as it hit me and I'm still kind of integrating it into my awareness.

This is probably a good place to tell the story of firing my kiln for the first time. The thing was delivered and set up and then I had to fire it empty once before using it. I thought I followed the instructions, but it wouldn't go up to the temperature it needed to get to. Well, what I failed to understand was I needed to let it get up to about 1000 degrees with the lid propped open and then at that point I needed to lower the lid for the remainder of the firing. I called the ceramic store and learned that this is what I did wrong, but by that time I thought for sure I'd ruined my kiln forever. I felt so embarrassed that I didn't know this information. I began to feel like ceramics was too huge and there was too much to learn. Really it took on this kind of shame that in my head it said I had no business being a clay artist and owning a home kiln because I don't even know something so basic like firing my kiln. Needless to say, I've been intimidated by the thing for years now and it was just in the last two days that I see - oh, how obvious - I'm letting my shame run my experience. It's gotten so bad that every time I went to work with clay it would trigger fear because of the shame. I have had other successful firings in my kiln - but it is like that first one set my baseline experience.

I can laugh about my first kiln experience. My husband and I had to move it and I got a ventilation system for it that required drilling holes into it - in other words I've had more opportunities to ruin the thing. So now my misfire experience is kind of funny to me. And now that I see the shame I covered myself under - well, it's really funny.

I got to thinking about Cameron's statement "the antidote for shame is self-love and self praise" That works I think. It works well if you are overcoming a bad review of your work. I did a google search for "antidote for shame" Some of the information I found said that laughter is an antidote. If you can laugh about what is causing you shame you get over it much quicker. I found info that said shame exists because we give 'others' the authority to judge us. It's the ol' 'what will they think of me?' The antidote is to stop worrying about what others think and forgive yourself. Also any activity leads to another activity and becomes an antidote to shame - its the get back up on the horse tactic.

What I had been doing because I just didn't see it was letting the activity of being ashamed lead me into the activity of avoiding my clay studio. I was worried about what others would think? Worried about how I didn't have enough clay knowledge. I've taken some classes but I'm more self taught than anything else. I felt like I was awful because I had the means to acquire a home kiln and then I let it sit unused. That imaginary 'they' as a group were shaking their fingers at me saying "Tsk, tsk, you ought to be ashamed of yourself - we wouldn't let the opportunity go to waste!"

Shame is a hard thing to share with others. And it feels a little weird to post this on my blog, but I feel as if the potential for confession of my shame on this blog has actually helped me release the unconscious hold this shame has had on me and maybe I hope it will help someone else.

I discovered -a synchronicity perhaps - at luminous debris an exercise that fits right into this insight. I was in a vicious circle with myself. The stuck clay artist circle that said I had to have knowledge and be perfect and then this pressure would cause me to avoid working and I feel shame which would go around again into I'm a stuck artist in a vicious circle. Patti helped me see the virtuous circle is showing up at the clay, recognizing the shame but just doing micromovements, enjoying mistakes, laughing and playing which lead to wanting to show up again at the clay.....
Coincidentally my intuition has already guided me to doing my daily lumps and as for shame....well, I realize that it'll take awareness and movement. It is listening to the advice that says -quit worrying about what others think. It is as luminous debris advises "Once defined, of course, the next step is to figure out what daily actions are keeping you on the vicious circle...and which new actions would move you to the virtuous circle." Oh, thank you Patti for your wonderful teaching.
Cameron's week three is about power and this is what I realize today that letting go of the shame is empowering. I don't feel so bad about the place I find myself in anymore creatively. I feel a sense of gratitude and tenderness toward myself. I feel capable of moving forward on my path rather than stumbling along on it under a cloak of shame. It's like surrender and the peace that exists from laying down the fight. Sure there is the tendency to cling to what is known- to want to pick up the shame again and examine it - but I am also noticing that there is another option that is about saying yes to revealing our secrets (no matter how insignificant they may seem to us). To going out there and finding what has juice or shakti or energy and not allowing shame to block this living - this yes living a creative life!