Moved to tears by Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk “The Price of Shame” I offer a link below.
What a brave and courageous woman. Several things really stood out for me – she referred to a time before the media furore surrounding her youthful choices, seventeen years ago now, as a time of being “unbroken”; her parents insisted she shower with the bathroom door open at the height of the drama, the implication being she may not have been safe behind closed doors, privacy enabling self-harm; the immense level of personal work she must surely have undertaken to be able to stand in the spotlight now, I absolutely take my hat off to her. She stated towards the end of the talk that now was the time to “stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past.” She is now taking a stand against cyberbullying and calling for compassion.
She spoke of not just shame but also humiliation. I had to look it up:
(1) The act of humiliating; degradation.
(2) The state of being humiliated or disgraced; shame.
(3) A humiliating condition or circumstance.
And it reminded me of a time in my own life, as a child, when I felt publicly humiliated by my mother. That I can remember a ten minute experience all these years later has me reflect on the way out and the way through – if you relate and haven’t yet come across Brené Brown’s TED talks and books, I highly recommend them.