This winter I am teaching my girls to shoot a basketball. The process is excruciatingly slow, even after they received Steph Curry’s online shooting class for Christmas. When it comes to mechanics, my girls have virtually zero muscle memory, which is actually good- better to learn right young than wait until bad habits have formed. The girls start close to the basket, and ready themselves with both hands to shoot.
“Take your left hand off the ball.”
They adjust to balance the ball with their right hand, and they bend their knees and throw the ball up. The ball rattles around the rim into the basket.
Standing a foot from the hoop, plenty of shots fall through the net. Good, right?
The problem is almost every shot involves one or two motions of poor mechanics- arm angle is more V-shaped than C-shaped; knees are turned inward; their palm holds the ball rather than their fingertips; they don’t finish up on their toes; they forget to hold their follow-through; there is no backspin on the ball; a foot or both is not squared up to the basket.
I want them to learn good habits and proper mechanics that they will depend on later in their basketball careers. So I am constantly shaping their form into the correct mold, but their instincts keep tempting their arms and legs and feet toward what feels comfortable to their inexperienced bodies.
This is the learning process, applicable to anything we might try to learn. It applies to us and our relationship with shame, too. Even proper and healthy shame must be practiced. The problem is every one of us has acquired poor mechanics by now.
The idea of shame has existed on my radar for sixteen years now. I have trudged through the muck of it, and I have miles to travel. It is difficult to awaken to the realization that shame is a lifetime journey. As a counselor, I have to ask the question: Do I awaken my clients to the reality of their own shame only to inform them they have begun a work which will not end this side of heaven?
I came across this quote once:
“I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”
This is the experience of discovering shame, and it is tempting to go back to the comfort and warmth of living asleep. But the hope of life, real life, draws us more honestly into the light. We have major issues with shame that will not go away quickly. Many people ask me how long it will take. The answer?
Your whole lifetime.
Hard as this truth is, another truth exists: Your work on shame is worth it. You will wage the war on shame until your last breath, and it matters everyday, to the end.
So?
So go slow.
Go.
Slow.
With grace.
Relieve yourself of the pressure to see quick results. Your toxic-shame has imbedded itself into your wiring through thousands of experiences. Its roots run deep. Give yourself two or three times as many years and experiences to rewire your mind and heart.
If my girls maintain their love of basketball and stick with it, they may one day be great shooters (And they will have to be great shooters, because I certainly did not offer them any height advantage). But it will take years of patiently and gracefully learning to shoot the right way, over and over until their mind and muscles learn.
May our mind and heart do the same with shame.
