Ain’t That a Shame?

Around the time that I was born, my parents bought a lot in a new development outside of a small town in South Carolina. Their house was one of the first to be built there. Growing up, there were always opportunities to ride bikes and jump over big mounds of dirt or build forts out of bricks and construction materials that were being used to build houses. We would hunt in the nearby woods and fish in the large neighborhood pond. It was pretty cool actually … just enough out in the country and just enough suburban development to allow me to explore the wilderness and have the safety of home not too far away.

One day I was playing with a kid up the street—I can’t remember his name and I don’t know how old I was then, but we were both pretty young. He and I decided to get some tools out of his father’s toolbox and take them down to the neighboring lot to play. I got a hammer and drove one of his Dad’s screwdrivers into a fallen pine tree. Being a young kid, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t gonna be able to get that thing out of the tree. I panicked and in the course of wrestling it out, I broke it off. We were deathly were afraid of being caught, so we raced to put everything back in his father’s toolbox and swore not to tell a soul. His parents never said anything-we got away with it.

Looking back it wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure that particular screwdriver cost a lot more than ones you can buy at Lowe’s or Home Depot nowadays, but still it was not as serious as we felt it was in the moment. This should be a relatively benign memory from my childhood, but it’s not.

My evangelical Christian upbringing wouldn’t allow it to drop. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. Secrets were sinful and the one I was holding would keep me out of Heaven. See I had been told that if I didn’t confess every sin (no matter how small) and remorsefully repent I would go to Hell. I remember distinctly sitting on my mom’s lap days later trying to tell her what happened and just breaking down crying. Sobbing uncontrollably, I was unable to speak. I got up, went to my room and never confessed. But I sure lived with the shame of my silence.

For several nights, I prayed for forgiveness. Was I talking to myself? Or was I performing like I’d been told I needed to in order to atone for my sins and keep everything right in the afterlife. My prayers those nights were rooted in fear. I was scuttling down the eternal fire escape to perceived safety. The whole experience took me out of my body and as a 53 year old writing this, I still feel a tightness in my chest. Over a flipping screwdriver!! Yeah, that’s how trauma works. It has taken me years to reclaim my physical body in a way that isn’t defined by the guilt and shame of my indoctrination.

Shame. It’s no way to teach if you want lasting change. It will leave an impact, but not always the one you are aiming for. As I overhear conversations within the Yoga teaching community and the sociopolitical ones outside of it, I can’t help but notice a stunning resemblance to the shaming in the name of an inflexible morality that rings all too familiar. And that’s a damn shame.