SHAME RESILIENCE: WHY KNOWING YOURSELF IS NECESSARY?
Written by Mitzy Sky (Previously published at www.mitzysky.com on April 28, 2022 updated December 28, 2022)
People will shame you to death, but you can walk confidently on this Earth because you are born worthy, and it is necessary to get to know yourself!
What Happened When I Shared Beyond the Story: Letting Go of Internalized Oppression, Fall a thousand times, get up a thousand and one! — Practicing discipline and consistency on Facebook?
My Response to The Comments:
I read every comment, checked every meme, and looked at all the names that shared an expression of anger, likes, laughter, and the one person that shared love. I hope you take the time to read my comment! The engagement rate for this post was the highest I’ve seen on anything I’ve shared on social media. It was more pain unleashed than love, but #pain is happening a lot in this world, and none of us are exempt from it. Facebook is asking if I want to boost the post again. What do you think? You went all out to share your thoughts and engaged.
I recognize the thoughts coming from fear turned into hate. Fear of what? Fear of not being seen or heard. Fear of not being first. Fear of not being loved. Fear of not existing. I heard it said God created a garden of many different flowers and colors that make it vibrant. We all belong.
Listen, I learned you must love yourself before you love anyone else. If I say I love you and don’t love myself, I wouldn’t know myself or what love is. Loving myself means I have the capability to love others, even those that don’t look like me. I’ve also had to learn to see myself as worthy, to know that we are all worthy of being seen and heard.
One person asked I bet this wasn’t what you were expecting. Nope, but I am very aware, as I said, of the pain roaming the Earth. One person said he feels oppressed as a White male. Oppression doesn’t care about skin color; in my life situations, I’ve had Black and White people in their roles who tried to put roadblocks in my way to keep their foot on my neck, but my awareness kept me observing the illusion more than getting stuck in it.
One person was asked and responded that it was okay for her (me) to have her (my) opinion but not on their Facebook feed. We all think this illusion of the matrix is the real world, and cyberbullying happens daily. I appreciate the person saying that everyone has a right to their thoughts. We all deserve to share our stories. People are in so much pain it is humbling to see. I left most of the comments up, from face diaper, racist, supremacist, to fuck off.
As I said, I observed the pain and knew everyone wanted to be seen, heard, and validated. I send out light and healing energy to everyone. However, I don’t think you read the message correctly or watched the video. “I’m letting go of internalized oppression.” That means what people think about me is none of my business; what I believe about myself is everything. I am grateful to have this human experience just as I am in this Beautiful Black Hue, another human experience but knowing the impermanence that this too shall pass!
One post said, “And one day…he met the only person oppressing himself.” Oppression is not something I created, and many of you are right; I don’t have to keep myself in it, but that is where awareness is the power to make that choice and why I do the work I do and write the way I write.
Internalizing oppression is something I learned in childhood in many different forms. My experience reaching out for help in this system as I got older when trying to avoid suffering caused more moral injury, but the pain has brought clarity. I have learned to give back through my “working to live.” I am consciously unlearning and gaining awareness! It’s a soul’s journey. I am moving from a journey of becoming somebody to a journey of becoming nobody. “Becoming nobody” is a phrase I learned from Ram Dass, and what it means for me is more a statement about freedom from chaos and less stress as life difficulties may arise.
The phrase from Beyoncé’s documentary and visual album Black is King, a remix of The Lion King on a sweatshirt, pushed many buttons. Again, love yourself first! The fact that a word could cause such pain to rise doesn’t have to continue being your human existence; we could transmute the pain. A book I recommend is The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. Learning not to take things personally, I recommend The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and if you don’t read anything at all, reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle will teach you that “we are not our thoughts.”
Black is King is a beautiful creation from Mrs. Beyoncé Knowles Carter that young Black kids could always know their worth supported by people they admire, so they too can realize they can prosper and thrive in this world despite the obstacles they may face and consciously and unconsciously built against them. I didn’t get that kind of support in my childhood in America, but it’s never too late, and I appreciate learning now!
I don’t personally use king or queen status. I believe we are all gods, created by God in God’s image. That is not my illusion; it’s from the Bible that I took the time to read for myself. It is not about what God looks like but more about our ability to create, forgive, love, charity, and show kindness! In God, I live, breathe, and have my being. We can change our life circumstances. We get to create the human experience we want!
I facilitate a training called compassionate activism; all are welcome to participate! If you cannot join the compassionate activism at this point of your life’s journey, you could check out Ram Dass’s work at www.RamDass.org or the Facebook page Ram Dass Love Serve Remember. “We are all walking each other home, “Ram Dass. Also, check out my Getting the Work Done page at www.mitzysky.com.
One consistent thing with all the comments is people’s camaraderie in sharing what they believe about oppression. The work in compassionate activism is to get to know each other to see how we could bridge the differences. I don’t focus on the old; I focus on the possibilities. I see you, and I hear you! I get to know myself. It is your job to get to know yourself. While you are watching other people, you lose connection to yourself. What do you know about yourself? What makes your joy rise? What makes your heart cry? What makes your heart smile? How do you let go of pain quickly and not create suffering for yourself and others?
The pain behind the veil of shame may still be heavy, but forgiveness does remove the illusion and sets people free to continue learning and connecting to move forward. The response may still be, fuck off, go away; in that case, the continued engagement may let this post go viral. Remember, it is the pain that is roaming the Earth. We could change it to love one person’s joy rising at a time by just remembering we are living in Love. We are love. Rumi said, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
