No puedes avergonzar una sin vergüenza (you can’t shame a person who has no shame.)
These are words I strive to live by every day.
Shame has been used to control the minds and bodies of Black, Indigenous, and all People of Color since colonization.
It has been passed from one generation to another in many different ways including but not limited to religion, community traditions, language, all types of oppression, and all types of media. Life is too short and too difficult to carry around the extra baggage that comes from shame. But it’s an intergenerational phenomenon that we must be willing to examine in ourselves and our ancestral line if we ever hope to be free to enjoy the present moment.
Bell hooks explained it best when she said, “Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis.”
In many Latinx communities being a sin vergüenza or person without shame, is a terrible thing.
I remember being shamed for shaking my hips too much during a dance performance at school (around 6 years old). When we had finished our number, I ran to my mom in the bleachers, proud of how I’d remembered every step. But instead of praise, I was called a sin vergüenza and told that I was never to act like that again. Over my lifetime, I’ve been shamed for being too gordita, too skinny, too sexual, too conservative, too flat-chested, too big-chested (I currently have expanders after a double mastectomy), and much, much more. In this society, we will always be shamed for something.
Over the years, I came to realize that shaking my hips didn’t make me bad. Finding pleasure in my body didn’t make me bad. And I began advocating for that truth personally and professionally early on. This served me well in my 30’s as I’ve now been through two traumatic emergency cesareans and a stage III breast cancer diagnosis with ongoing treatment. Finding body positivity and sexual positivity without shame is medicina in itself.
Here are my 6 favorite ways to release shame:
Learn More Context: Some of us carry shame surrounding our medical situations. But gaining an understanding of the larger context of our situations can go a long way to alleviating that shame. For example, I developed a lot of shame at being diagnosed with stage III breast cancer as my mom also had this illness and died of it when I was 8 years old. I thought I should have found it earlier and I was ashamed that I had allowed this to happen. But after learning more about our whole family history, understanding the statistics of our comunidad, and stepping back to see everything I’d been dealing with simultaneously right before my diagnosis, I was able to give myself some true grace.
- Find Your Comunidad: This one is huge! It’s so helpful to find others who you can relate to when you’re entering the vortex of a new traumatic situation. I remember digging and searching the internet, after being diagnosed last winter, for BIPOC folks that had been through the journey I was just beginning. Finding For The Breast of Us and their amazing Baddie Ambassadors on Instagram helped me feel so much less alone at a time that the whole world was isolated due to the pandemic and I was just starting treatment.
- Reconnect With Your Body: Many of us disconnect from our bodies when we’re going through a traumatic situation. This is a natural and protective response that we’re lucky to have as humans. And reconnecting to our bodies when we’re ready can help us to find healing, joy, and even pleasure. For me danza (traditional Mexica dance) has been one of the ways I’ve been able to continue to reconnect with my body during and after treatment. The power of our community and our ancestors gathering around the drum is unmatched. It brings me into the present and connects me to Tonantzin (Mother Nature) no matter where my mind has been before the circle.
- Learn Your Somatics of Shame: Shame is one of those emotions that’s easy to spot as it’s ramping up inside your body because of the somatic clues it provides. Some of us get twinges in our stomachs, others get a certain taste in their mouth, and many acknowledge their posture changing when they are in a state of shame. When we learn to identify shame coming, we can head it off more easily. If I know I’m at the edge of a shame spiral, I try to acknowledge that petulant child inside of me and turn toward something more comforting or uplifting.
- Integrate Your Scars and Body Changes: Of course, this comes with time but there are lots that can be done to work with your scars and what you see in the mirror. One of the integral steps in this process is working with our scar tissue. And after breast cancer, we tend to have a lot of it. Yet we hold a lot of our own medicina in our hands. Having worked with my cesarean scars and having the training and mentorship as a somatic practitioner has allowed me to begin working with my body shortly after my procedures. For many of us, there might be quite a few other steps we have to take before we get to this point. Simply looking in the mirror and working with the sensations that come up can be an incredibly healing place to start.
- Tell Your Story Your Way: There can be a lot of pressure to share your story in a certain way or on a certain platform. But sharing too much too soon or in a way that doesn’t feel right for you can lead to shame spiraling and even retraumatization. Don’t override your own instincts. Allow yourself to share at your own pace and in a way that feels okay for you. I remember sharing some of my tests during diagnosis on social media and then feeling obligated to share the results even though they were still complicated and overwhelming for me. I quickly figured out I needed to be okay with my fluctuating boundaries and respect my own process. Sometimes I’m ready to write for the public, other times I am only ready to share with a thread of my closest friends, and then there are the days that only my partner or my journal will be privy to what I need to share.
