shame

Today is International Podcast Day—another one of those random “days” that I would not have known about had it not been for Twitter. Generally, #podcastday would not have mattered to me had I not wanted to blog about a new podcast I recently discovered. I’ve been listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Magic Lessons whenever I can. Through these podcasts she coaches women on developing their creativity and interviews a variety of successful artists. In Episode 12 of this podcast she interviews Brene Brown and they have this exchange:

Gilbert: What does creativity mean to you?

Brown: If you’d asked me five years ago what creativity means to me, I would have said, Ha. That’s cute. That’s fun. I don’t really do a lot of A-R-T because I’ve got a J-O-B. So you go grab your paintbrush and your scrapbooking, but I’ve got to get shit done. But if you would ask me now, though, I would say that creativity is the way I share my soul with the world and without it I am not okay.

I resonated with the journey Brene Brown’s statement reflects. For so many years of my life I simply did not have time to nurture my creativity because I had to get shit done. Things changed for me, though, when I was trying to decide whether or not to begin my work with my writing coach, Christine Hemp. I heard myself saying to Christine over the phone, everything’s better when I am writing. This was when it clicked for me. I had to do this creative work. I had to make writing a priority in my life. It wasn’t selfish. It wasn’t just for me. It was bigger than me.

In the podcast, Brown and Gilbert go on to discuss all the shame associated with creativity. Brown said that 85% of the men and women she interviewed for her research on shame remember an event in school that was so shaming it changed how they thought of themselves for the rest of their lives. Tragically, 50% of the 85% had shame wounds around creativity. They had been told they couldn’t sing, looked stupid dancing, or “Read your essay, don’t quit your day job.” Brown called these “art scars.”

Acknowledging what I know—that I am a better person, mother, spouse, pastor when I give my creativity room to dance—helps me ward off this shame. I am intentional now about making room for it in my life. I schedule it into my work calendar. I make an appointment with my writing. And the rest of the day benefits from that time of soul work.

So if you need a little creative inspiration. Check out Gilbert’s podcast and start nurturing your soul.

I’m attending a lot of panels here at AWP: a couple on social media, one on the contemplative writing of Thomas Merton, and one on writing the “occasion” poem (which inspired my forthcoming inauguration prayer.) All the panels I’ve attended have been really useful and informative, so yesterday I decided to attend something completely different. I attended a panel called, “No Shame: Sex Scenes by Women, About Women.” Clearly, I was not going to get any good sermon material here. I just went into the panel open and without expectation. And I chose a seat in the back, hoping there wouldn’t be any required audience participation.

Surprisingly, this turned out to be one of the best panels I attended. To set the scene, it was standing room only. The convention hall room was full of women. We sat shoulder to shoulder in rows of uncomfortable chairs. There must have been about two hundred of us crammed in there. No one looked liked a sexual deviant. In fact, most of the women looked a lot like me (see yesterday’s post about the boring gray dress slacks with the black blouse.) There were a few men scattered in the room, but (good for them) they kept quiet and let the women hold forth. The presenters were all amazing; strong, courageous, smart, witty women who spoke frankly about the role of sex scenes in good literature. (We’re not talking erotica here, folks.) The takeaway theme of the panel was that it’s never just about the sex in literature.

In fact, the panel was more a discussion about the messages our culture sends women about sex and sexuality. The most retweeted quote (yes, I tweet now!) from the panel was, “Sex is often about power, and female sexuality is too—and female power often makes people anxious.” One of the presenters shared how after her mother-in-law read her novel, which included a few fictitious sex scenes, mother-in-law called her husband to tell him that his wife was obviously a sexual deviant who must be molesting his children. To her credit, the presenter refused to let mother-in-law shame her and she kept on writing. But shame seems to be the name of the game when women talk sex.

In the discussion that followed the panelists’ presentation many confessed to their sexual shame and their need for liberation. Typically, the stories included messages of shame that were received early (between eight to twelve years old) and then kept up for a lifetime by a culture ill at ease with a woman’s sexuality. Listening to these stories unfold, I couldn’t help but think about how the Church has been the main supplier of this sexual shame. Maybe we should have a panel discussion too.

In a lighter moment, a woman shared that she was too worried to write about sex for fear of what her family and friends might think. To which one of the presenters replied, “It’s time to stop worrying about whether people like you or not. We’re grown ass adults. Pack that away.”

Obviously, there was lots of hilarity in between the meaningful discussion. One presenter rattled off a seriously long list of clichés, words to avoid when writing the literary sex scene. The list included: gazongas, bodacious bosoms, family jewels, ta-tas, tube sticks, penis fly-traps…(there were more, but I was laughing so hard at this point I couldn’t write.)

Finally, there was a sense of camaraderie in the room by the end of the discussion—or to use a more churchy word—a sense of community. I had turned to my neighbor sitting to my right and my left numerous times during the course of the panel to share a laugh or an appreciative nod. We were no longer strangers. We had bonded over a subject that is important to all of us, and yet one that we rarely have the freedom to talk about. Maybe we should talk some more? Maybe we could find ways to celebrate our sexuality, rather than shame? Maybe we could be more like Fred Rogers who, in my book, wins the prize for the best non-anxious description of the way God made us. “Boys are fancy on the outside. Girls are fancy on the inside.” (Tweet this.)