Orphan Shame & Self-compassion

Recently I did a personal growth piece that showed me a shame layer that I had tucked away in my consciousness.  When I was 8 years old, I came back to Canada with my sister (my mother and stepfather stayed behind) from living 3 years in Jamaica.  

We had survived a robbery while we were living there and within days, we were sent back home.  My sister and I lived with my aunts and uncles for about 6 months as we tried to normalize life.  I was relieved. I didn’t like living in Jamaica. I felt the abuse, oppression and violence there, which really was the history of slavery, and it was ripe in the cultural pain.  I also was an outsider as a privileged racial minority, and could feel the resentments and weird treatment from people around me. There was very little compassion and empathy coming my way, which I understand in the bigger scheme of racial oppression. However, as a child, it created the suffering of social isolation and exclusion for me.   

I also didn’t like the school system that used the belt to punish kids. I wanted to be back in Canada in a gentler school system where you could play, have a fun at recess and get to know other kids easily without the tensions of race and class.

As much as I wanted to be back in Canada, I also wanted my mom with me, which is natural.  It was unknown when she would return and join us. As weeks passed, my heart retracted and I had to soothe myself to sleep. No one around me, except my sister, knew my pain.   I was now the weird cousin who had a Jamaican accent who had no parents around her.  My aunts and uncles did everything to create stability for us.  I enjoyed the familiar surroundings.  

At the time, my mother was considering staying in Jamaica, having our aunts and uncles raise us.  I picked up on the adults’ concerns and messages around me. “Poor Heather”, “She doesn’t have any parents”, “What’s going to happen to her?”. 

For most of my life I internalized this message of “poor Heather” and I believed there was something wrong with me because I was so different than everyone else. I was deficient. I must have been so unlovable to have no parents who wanted to care for me.  It’s no wonder that my favourite movie at the time was Little Orphan Annie.  I identified so strongly with her character. I was an orphan with parents who were still alive and were still deemed as my caregivers.  I took in the shame that my mother, father and stepfather should have been carrying.  I believed that I deserved to be rejected and have no one care to come for me. 

When the truth of it is that I had bad parents. Adults who couldn’t care less to become better people. They were immature people. Escape artists who dumped their problems for other people to handle. They just wanted what they wanted. I was a burden in their eyes and too heavy for them to carry.

For most of my life, I’ve felt like the odd duck around families that functioned well, stayed together and showed normalcy. There was a sense that I could never get it together and I was the broken person. By recognizing that I have worth, I am strong for going through this and still have my heart in tact, I can see my goodness.  I am loveable even though I didn’t have people who had my back.  I belong to humanity, regardless of how I was treated.

Better yet, there are blessings in walking as the orphan. I am someone who isn’t afraid to be different. There is an inner strength in me that knows how to soothe myself and to not succumb to peer or family pressure to be a certain way. The only healing I have to do is face the loneliness that not having parents created in me, and to know that I deserve people around me who care, are empathetic and want to see me and know me. People who actually miss me. It has also made me highly compassionate for the people who feel different and unlovable, the outsiders of their family system.

Shame has so much to teach us. Often times it is usually an illusion and something that has been wrongfully put on us from a young age.  It lacks compassion and ease and keeps us separated from the world, telling us we are bad and deficient and beyond repair.  It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where we behave in ways that keep making this happen.

Here is an exercise that may help you tap into and find some resolution with areas where you may feel shame.  As a point to remember, shame is any area where we feel inherently bad, defective, wrong or weird.  

Get a journal to write down your answers to the following:

1) Identify a time in your life now where you feel lonely, misunderstood, hurt or rejected.

2) When was there a time in your life when you were younger where you felt the same way?  What happened? 

3) Meditate on that younger version of yourself.  What did he/she need or want? Why did she feel so wrong or ashamed? What was really happening in your life at that time?

4) Write a compassionate letter to that younger part of yourself, reassuring him or her that no matter what happened, she/he is still lovable and wanted and needed in this world. Offer a new perspective of what's really going on. Really find out what you decided about yourself and life.  

5) Reflect on how your younger self's experiences have impacted your reality now.  What are new decisions or beliefs you can make for yourself?

5) Take time to feel your feelings either by spending time on your own or asking a friend to be there for you. Your feelings matter and you deserve to have love and compassion in your life.

I would love to help you through any illusions of shame you may be carrying, where you can make new choices and decisions that allow you to step into your truth, personal happiness and feelings of self-compassion. I am someone who holds no judgment towards how you have had to cope or manage in your life.  Through my experience, tools and compassion I can guide you into healthier love and self-acceptance, bringing a deeper sense of who you are and a more enriching life.  

You can book a FREE "Be Your Own Best Friend" Session at: www.blossomingheart.ca