Your Shame On Me

"She grew angry. “Stop that! Stop saying that. You stop that now!”
My mother then stormed toward me and began punching me, over and over, to the point where I fell on the floor. She straddled me and continued to punch me, screaming, “Shut up! Shut up!”
My grandmother then entered the room, and her calm voice halted things. “Amy, you better stop. You’re going to hurt him.”This is what I meant about disarming: She didn’t come in shouting at my mother, as one would imagine she would do. She was calm and somehow knew that her gentle approach would make my mother stop. Whether it was immediate or gradual, I don’t remember. All I know is that the punching stopped. There had been occasions before that moment when I questioned my value as a person, but that experience, when I was eight years old, confirmed my unworthiness. I felt like I would disappear into a pile of ashes.
Shame—what happened when my mother, the dragon, huffed and puffed and blew my self down....

... so was the childhood of my parents and probably their parents. As my friend Richard Rohr said, “If we don’t learn to transform the pain, we’ll transfer it.” I realized my mother wasn’t the dragon; she was another victim of the dragon. But the dragon doesn’t die easily, so the shame just kept passing down the generations. I fear I’ve passed it along as well.

(Brennan Manning. All Is Grace)