Shame, boatloads of shame.

Day after day, more of the same.

Blame, please lift it off.

Please take it off, please make it stop.

– Lyrics from “Shame” by the Avett Brothers

 

A funny chain of events today led to a moment that helped me understand something about shame.

We had a package delivered to our apartment yesterday. The delivery man left it outside our door, and it was then taken away by the trash collector who comes everyday. This is the second time he has taken something that wasn’t meant to be trash, and this time it was a little more obvious, as it was an unopened package. So I tracked him down via our property manager,  and it turned out that he did indeed have the package and knew its contents.

When I went to meet the guy who had taken it, I had a feeling it might be a bit awkward. I figured he was probably a bit embarrassed and felt some shame about it, especially since this is the second time it’s happened. When we met, he started telling me off a bit in Mandarin. I couldn’t quite make out everything he was saying, but I think he was essentially blaming me for leaving things outside the door that weren’t meant to be taken away as trash. I just kind of smiled and told him thank you, hoping he could see that I wasn’t upset with him for taking it.

This little interaction was another moment of confirming something I’ve been learning.

We can’t live with shame.

Shame is like a hot potato. We don’t want to hold onto it. It burns us too deeply. It’s incredibly painful. So we either try to find a way to pass it on to someone/something else, or we hold onto it and live in ever increasing pain. The delivery guy was trying to pass me the hot potato. He felt shame for having taken the package, and was trying to convince both himself and me that it was my fault he took our package. Before, I probably would’ve been either offended at such a suggestion and thrown the shame/blame back at him, or perhaps been more averse to the conflict than the shame and just taken the shame to pass off to someone else later. Now that I’ve started to see what’s really happening, I’ve found it easier to just relieve him of the hot potato of shame, while not carrying it myself either. Just bury that thing. Maybe some life will grow.