asked me when I was in my twenties what the primary motivating force in the universe is, I would have said love. Easy right? True? Well that's subjective. Now that I have more experience, I'd certainly agree that love can be one's driving force, but as with most things, it might be a little more complicated than that.
Money motivates, yes? I mean you can't eat love, so you need money; therefore, you work to make money to meet your needs. For some people, that's enough. Meet your needs, take care of your family, save for the future. Cool. Some people need more than just enough money, so they do more things that make them more money, and that's cool, too.
Recognition motivates. Some people are driven by the need to have folks know their names. They need for people to know the good they are doing in the world or about the big life moves they are making. I mean, that's why we all have social media, right? To share things. To be a little bit famous. Other people are motivated by a cause. They do things because of something we see as bigger than us...for the greater good.
So those are all obvious, but now that I'm a bit more self-aware and honest, I realize one of the things that moves people is shame. Sit with that for a second. Think of what you immediately thought of when you read the word shame. I would wager that almost everyone seeing this had an immediate reaction. I did. A highlight (lowlight?) reel of things I've done that are shameful starts to play. Shame has weight. I feel it as I type. It can paralyze you; it can make you into someone you wish you weren't; it can make you do things you wish you hadn't to cover it up; and it can even kill you. Shame changes how you believe others see you, but even more so, it changes how you see yourself.
Shame is often coupled with a secret. We certainly don't want people knowing what makes up the darkest parts of us, the corners of our lives that are scary and dirty. The ones we try not to visit until they start screaming at us in the middle of the night. "Why didn't I?" "Why did I?" "How could I have..." Shame eats at you. Oh you can go long periods of time without it showing itself, but it's always there, waiting. It wears you down, doesn't it?
Sometimes the disgrace is not even caused by us. Being sexually assaulted as a child had absolutely nothing to do with anything 8 year old me had done. I didn't ask for it. I didn't create the monster who did it, yet shame and fear kept me silent for almost two decades. That secret shaped parts of me that are still disfigured and disordered. Even though it's not something I hide anymore, there are things that create panic in me because of that. And my inability to completely overcome that experience causes an entirely new type of humiliation. Other people can build shame in us that should be theirs instead.
Shame makes us believe many untruths about ourselves. We're not worthy of good things. We're unlovable. We're an imposter. Shame makes us believe others see us differently, broken, worthless when the truth is, we see ourselves through the lens of regret. It makes us see ourselves as different, broken, worthless.
Now we know, logically, that's not real. It's a distorted vision of who we are. We can know people who love us deeply; we can express our own self worth when pressed to do so -- I'm kind. I contribute to my community. I care for my family. I work hard. We can even find our sameness to those around us. But that thing that we did/said/had/took/gave is like an itch you can't scratch. You carry on, but you're never truly permanently comfortable.
I think about some of the things I've done and said in my past, and I wonder how anyone could like me, let alone love me. My husband knows things about me no other human does, and that man thinks I painted the sunrises just for him. I have dear friends and family to whom I've said things that make me physically duck and cringe when I think of them. I've been selfish with them. I've been absent when they needed me. Ugh, the way I treated my mom when I was in my thirties...I just can't. And yet, they care for me in a way that makes me feel like some kind of prize. I wonder what I've done to deserve such care, such devotion, such love. I can name things I've done to not be worthy of those things, but why they give them to me anyway eludes me.
Except...perhaps they feel something similar. Perhaps they have had moments where they believed someone couldn't continue to love them. Perhaps they all carry secrets they believe make them unworthy and unlovable. I can't for the life of me think of any. I can hold my oldest dear friend Julie M. up to a light, and I can't see a single flaw. I can sure count mine. Somehow, she is still there. After 46 years of friendship, she would still check the YES box on my note asking if she's my bff. KGC has known me since fourth grade. She carries much of my history. I feel no judgement, only acceptance. No appearance of looking back, just continual forward motion.
My husband, well, he knows everything. Yet he squeezes my hand in the middle of the night. He tells me I'm the good stuff, that I'm his bestest good friend, that he loves me with a love that is more than love. He held the trashcan when I threw up after my hysterectomy. He stood quietly while I railed and screamed and cursed with grief in my backyard. He asked gentle questions about my reactions, so he can help protect me from my own demons. He knows things about me that I almost can't bear to think about. And he's in our bed right now sleeping peacefully knowing who I am and what shameful things I've been capable of in the past, still loving me fiercely and profoundly. He's seen me, really looked deep and seen me, and found me more than worthy.
I say all of that to say this, perhaps I was right in my twenties, about that one thing at least. (Definitely not about the stacked bob haircut or frosted brown lipstick.) Perchance, twentysomething Lisa knew that the supreme motivating force in the universe simply, profoundly is love.
I know I promised our visits would not be all live, laugh, love. This isn't that. This isn't love is blind, love conquers all...blah, blah, blah. This is love sees and knows and ultimately understands. Love knows your shame, it sees all the hell you've created and it picks you up and carries you through it.
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