Don't Judge Shame By Its Cover

Here’s how i often see people deal with other people’s shame:

The Ashamed: I have shame about attribute A.The Listener: You are great about attribute A.  You have no reason to feel shame.The Ashamed: I feel judged and am now embarrassed about how i feel.  I still feel shame about attribute A.

Instead of telling the shameful that they shouldn’t feel the way they feel, maybe we can all share our stories of the shame we feel and why we hide it.  Here is mine.

I was the fat kid in my school.  I sat in the back, born with a passion for puzzles and a hatred of exercise.  Maybe it was the asthma, the eczema, or that i was just physically lazy.  Maybe it was a psychosomatic manifestation of my internal hatred for physical activity that made my sweat feel like acid and my breath feel like fire.  Whatever the reasons and despite them, i grew up and joined the circus.  I am an amateur member of Fractal Tribe.  I’m almost 40 years old and i am in the best shape of my life.  

But the reality is that, in my circus troupe, I'm still the fat kid.

Granted being the “fat kid” in Fractal Tribe is a bit like being the stupidest Rocket Scientist in the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics, but the point is that i FEEL like the fat kid.  I developed anxiety around eating in high school and have some deep-seated body issues that have never abated.  This is fresh in my mind because of Fractal Tribe’s most recent theatrical production, Sub Rosa.  Sub Rosa explored sexuality in ways that pushed me to my limits and held me there for about a year.  The director requested that i perform the last half of the show shirtless.  I wrestled with this request for months, but in the end i found that i couldn’t do it.  It forced me to deal with all of my body issues in a way that i have  avoided for the bulk of my life.  When trying to convince myself to acquiesce, I tried to hold on to the idea that my inability to perform shirtless was a type of fat shaming in which i claimed, “if you are as fat as me, you should be ashamed of your body” which felt contrary to my value system. I held on to  this reasoning, hoping that it would give me confidence through purpose.  In the end, that thought just made me feel worse.  My shame kept my body concealed, which fed the guilt i felt for the message i thought it sent. Here’s a picture from that show.

One of these is not like the other.  I look at that photo now and all i see is my shame surrounded by their pride.

So i’m left with this question, what should i have done?  I wish i could choose to be proud of my body, but that wasn’t an option then, and might never be.  I tried pretending that i was not ashamed, but that created a deeply embarrassing lie.  I tried making it about me; I tried making it about other people; I tried pretending it didn’t bother me.  All those efforts just made me feel worse.  I know that what i’m supposed to do is accept my body and love myself.  I know that i should be happy just the way i am.  But i’m not.  I am ashamed of my body.  But maybe that’s the part i’m missing.  Maybe it’s ok that i have some shame about something. Maybe i’m psychologically injured and i’ll never be totally happy with my body.  Maybe that’s ok too.  

The whole thing has a different feel if i think of my shame as an injury.  When i was a kid, i was in a terrible psychological accident, that accident being that I was fat.  It caused an injury, that injury being shame, which went untreated for decades and left me chronically handicapped, that being that it left me ashamed of my body.  Just like all old injuries, the older they are the deeper they get and the harder it is to root them out.  My first step is to admit that i was injured.  It doesn’t mean that i am broken; it doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with ME.  If there is something wrong, it is how i relate to my body.  Like any injury, it does not define who i am.  If i look at my shame like an injury, i can be ok with it.  I might have an old injury, but i can be ok with myself, shame and all.  

Do you understand what it is like to have shame that you want to hide?  If so, i want you to know that you are not alone.  I don’t claim to have THE answer; i’m not even sure if i really have AN answer.  But i do know that when someone shared her shame around her body issues with me, this got easier.  One of the reasons this article feels so “first person” is that i’m not trying to speak FOR you, but TO you, with the hope that one day we can all have a conversation WITH each other.  

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Partner Acro Performer for Fractal Tribe

Calibration and Test Engineer for the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics

I don’t capitalize “i” because it’s silly. http://blog.dictionary.com/whycapitali/

However, i can’t bring myself to kill the apostrophe, even though it too is silly. http://www.killtheapostrophe.com/

Acro Etiquette

Here’s a compilation of little tips that might make for a better experience for you and those around you.  These are not RULES, rather things i’ve picked up from listening to people over the years.  

• No means NO.
• If someone tells you they don’t want to do something, resist the temptation to pressure them into it.  True, some people find it easier to get over their fears and out of their comfort zone if you put a little effort in trying to convince them, but it’s a good practice to respect people’s decisions about their own experience and trust that they know themselves better than you know them.
• Down means down.  
• If someone says that they want down, let them down.  If someone wants to stop, stop.  There will be times when it feels like you know why they want to come down and it would better for them if you kept them up, but maybe you’re wrong and they have an injury that's flaring up, maybe they're having a heart attack, maybe they reeeeally have to fart and don't want to do it in your face - point is, when someone says down, just down without question.  
• Say down early.  Say down often.
• If you say down early, you might come down before you absolutely have to.  If you say down late, you might not be able to go back up.   
• Ask before giving feedback.
• If you have a advice or feedback for your partner or your fellow acro practitioners, ask if they are interested in feedback before delivering it.  Just because someone doesn’t want your feedback doesn’t MEAN that they are an asshole or that you are stupid.  It just means that they are not interested in your feedback right now.  The one exception to this rule is if you think that someone’s safety is being compromised.
• Listen to feedback, even if you don’t follow it.
• If you’re having a hard time sticking something, ask someone for feedback.  If someone offers you and your partner feedback and you don’t want it, remember, your partner might.  When people offer you feedback, they are offering you a gift.  Be thoughtful before you reject it, especially since you don’t know what’s inside.  You don’t have to keep it, but it would be at least a nice gesture to find out what’s inside.
• Ask for a spot.
• If one of you wants a spot, get a spot.  There’s no reason to convince your partner that you don’t need a spot.  If the question comes up “Should we get a spot?” the answer is probably yes.  There is much less regret in having a spot when you don’t need one then not having one when you do.  Communities are built on people helping each other.  
• Have things you are working on.
• Have some idea of what you want to be working on.  This is especially important for the less experienced partner. If you’re partner is more experienced than you, you might not be able to do the things that they are most interested in training.  Further, most people don’t show up to jams in order to give free lessons.  Don’t get me wrong, they are probably enjoying themselves and probably like sharing their knowledge, but they’ll like their experience with you more if you don’t try to get them to figure out what it is that you might enjoy doing.  It would be little like a math tutor asking “what would you like help with?” and you responding with “I don’t know.  Teach me something”.  
• Act gracefully around rejection
• Jams are places that people go and play acro and that requires a partner, which leads to the potentially awkward part of asking people if they want to play and sometimes it leads to the much more awkward situation where the answer is “no”.  Most people are not going to be that blunt.  If someone says anything other then “yes”, give them the space to exit the situation gracefully.  Try not to hover and be overly persistent.  This person now knows you want to play, and if they want to play, I’m sure they will let you know. Here are something things that people often say INSTEAD of “no”, when they actually mean “no”.
• I’m still warming up
• I’m stretching
• I’m waiting for my partner.
• I’m just going to watch for a while
• Anything besides “yes”
• Alternatively, it could be you that wants to reject someone.  There are many ways to do this gracefully, but here’s a decent rule of thumb: It’s easy for rejection to feel like judgement.  If you can deliver your ‘no’ without making the other person feel judged, it’ll probably be a better experience for both of you.
• Have FUN.
• If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.