Today, I am thinking about releasing guilt and making boundaries.
Guilt Needs Some Boundaries Too
Time to think about boundaries, about making boundaries for the surging misbehaving guilt that leaps and nips at me.
It would, given the chance, sink its teeth right in and not let go. It would, if I let it, tear my seams and bedraggle my hems.
I think about the Tibetan Mastiffs I met yesterday. One was much smaller than the other (although still large. Very large.) and he wanted to prove his strength against the world of me and my tote bag. Nibble. Tug. Nibble. Attention finally caught, I looked down at his enormous jaws.
“Szzt,” and a snap of my fingers stopped him, surprised. More importantly: a shut door in my mind between his naughtiness and my tote. His people make no effort to restrain him. Instead, they chuckle and tell me how he tore open their friend’s jeans.
Indeed.
Guilt is like a big unruly dog who loves you
I find myself wondering, again, why it is that people invite big dogs into the family but do not think it necessary to acquaint them with the rules, to teach them where the boundaries are.
And immediately, I see this giant’s lesson for me, the lesson he held in his drooly teeth when he reached through my debilitated, feeble boundary and nibbled my tote bag.
I will remember this mastiff monkey-monster, and I will call him Guilt.
Yes, Guilt, I’m talking to you. No more tugs on the corners of my soft, struggling new peace; no more nibbles along my almost-fraying edges.
I understand that you have things to tell me, are afraid I haven’t heard the things you tell me. I see your worried eyes following me and your wanting paw upraised. Thank you, but it’s okay. I heard you. It’s time for you to go chase squirrels, Guilt.
Go on.
And shame is the sheep your guilt dog herds!
You’ve done your job, you’ve herded my scattered shame-sheep and brought them out from all their dark mountain caves and hiding spots. I see them, and I speak their sorry names out loud.
[Oh, hello, reader. Join me, if you like. Brene Brown is so right. When you speak Shame’s name, it loses its imposter power.]
So here’s a name for one of my sheep (see the one over there, covering under all her ratty wool?):
I was not the good and loving mother you think. I was probably a terrible mother.
And here’s how I will rename my ratty sheep and fluff her wool:
I was, however, the best that I could be then, in that place and time, scrabbling for a hold on the greasy sides of the pit he dug for me with his sharp-edged shovel of disparagement and discounting.
Guilt, you panting, overgrown, teething puppy, you brought us together, my shoddy sheep and I. Now, take them away.
I’m ready to stop shearing their tiresome, bulky fleece. I’m ready to stop endlessly carding, hopelessly spinning; I’m ready to stop wearing their rough, itchy wool. There’s much better wool on the Sheep of Honour Myself. I’m off to knit a shawl.
[Featured Image by Lydia Wang from Pixabay]