Identity and shame

Often I am asked where I work and then the follow-up of what do I do there.  My answer is phrased as an identity mostly because it’s easier that way.

“I’m the Chief Information Officer.”

I do, generally, go on to explain and qualify that.  “I clean up after elephants, put out fires, and kill snakes.”

While Jim Croce’s song lyrics state that “after all it’s what we’ve done that makes us what we are”, I don’t really think of myself as an elephant poop-scooper or a fireman or a snake terminator.

So it was with some serious reflection that I read this morning in Brene Brown’s book, “I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)” about the role that identity-labels play in shame, guilt, and healing.  She quotes Harriet Lerner: “For people to look squarely at their harmful actions and to become genuinely accountable they must have a platform of self-worth to stand on”.  and “We cannot survive when our identity is defined by or limited to our worst behavior.”

Now, both of these researchers are way more knowledgeable about this area than I am, but I would argue that it isn’t just our worst behavior that should not be used to define or limit our identity.  Any time we use behaviors – good, bad or indifferent – to define ourselves (or others), we are in danger of missing not only who we really are but also who we are meant to be.

My precious sister, Karen, is in late stages of breast cancer.  As I listen to those involved in her care – particularly her emotional, mental, psychological care – they are careful about the words they choose.  Cancer survivor, cancer victim, et al, have been replaced by descriptive personhood language:  someone with cancer, woman who has a disease, etc.  Because Karen is not defined by her cancer – she is MUCH more than that.

And that makes me wonder about other areas of identity and accountability, whether addiction, those in prison (whether physical, mental or emotional), work titles, or any of those areas that allow us to assume more than we are or dismiss who we are or who someone else really is.

“She’s just a [secretary, junkie, prisoner,mom,  _______ ].”

“Oh, he’s a [fireman, drunk, homeless, CEO, _____ ].”

Identifying someone by an attribute,things like their job or their addiction or their illness/disease or their behavior(s), opens the door, it seems to me, for shame and judgments about worthiness whether our own or someone else’s.  Rather than acknowledge our attributes – good and not so good – and the accountability we have for dealing with those accessories, we accept them as defining, permanent, outside our control.

So, let me be clear.  I am NOT a kitty couch for Sam the cat.  I am the Beloved of God who just happens to have a cat stretched out napping in my lap.

Sam disagrees.