how many of you growing up had an
imaginary friend just signify by raising
your hand okay great
so keep your hands up if your imaginary
friend committed suicide just me huh
well let me tell you about my imaginary
friend Charlie Charlie was very
significant in my childhood he and I did
everything together
and he was absolutely adorable you know
let me just show you a picture of
Charlie and me at Christmastime boy did
I tell you he was adorable look at him
look at his hair it’s perfect but he
wasn’t just a cute kid Charlie also was
a really good student he was an avid
reader we have a picture of Charlie at
school well I’m able to laugh today
at my thought process as a child the
manner which I constructed for Charlie
to leave me is a clear reflection of how
much shame had eroded my young life
within three years of Charlie leaving me
I became a daily drinker at the age of
eleven I experienced my first drunk and
my first blackout and I absolutely fell
in love with alcohol just four years
later at the age of 15 while intoxicated
I fell off a two-story building the
doctors told my father that probably
would not live and if I did I would be
paralyzed I eventually walked out of
that hospital and within days I had a
drink in my hand at the age of 22 while
incredibly and liberated I physically
beat my best friend so badly that she
required
my life was riddled with shame and then
on April 8 1995 I came to in a hospital
bed someone I placed me in a medical
detox unit and on that day my battled
alcoholism ended in my journey to
understand Shane began currently I’ve
been sober for 22 years
and every day I see the devastation of
shame but I get to teach the advantage
of faith in it and I believe that we can
eradicate shame one lie one life at a
time
what is shame how did something
invisible become so destructively
evident in my life
shame is a belief that I’m not good
enough it is an idea that I am who
others say I am and I forfeit the right
to decide myself shame is a gift is a
host of lies in its graffiti Jane is a
gift now it’s not the christmas hanukkah
kind of gift it’s more of the STD type
right
you cannot manufacture it alone
someone else has to give it to you
someone else have to bring you into a
relationship with Shane a child cannot
believe or think that she is stupid
unless someone tells her that she is
Shane comes from the outside social
media TV parents teachers complete
strangers and that buries itself inside
of us and it changes how we view
ourselves in the world
Renee Brown states shame corrodes the
very part of us that believes are
capable of change what that means is if
you comment on my weight I’m not gonna
go home and adopt a healthy lifestyle
I’m gonna go home in a box of Oreos
double stuff at that Shane is a host of
lies
after spending some time with me AAA
sponsor she told me that my mind was a
bad neighborhood she said don’t go up
there alone it’s just too dangerous
now you’ve heard a little bit about my
childhood remember Charlie so you may
tend to agree with her and I do as well
my mind is a bad neighborhood but only
when I believe the lies of shame when I
live a lie as if it is true that I’m
distracted my purpose instead consumed
by behavior drug addiction
bulimia people-pleasing just to name a
few
truth can hurt but it doesn’t create
bondage that’s changed job my job it’s a
bit shame out of work with shame
unemployed the neighborhood can become a
quieter safer place and purpose can take
up residency shame is the graffiti it
covers our purpose when I look at this
picture my first reaction is pumps pumps
that have too much time on their hands
but if you took this exact piece and you
placed it in a museum
I would automatically think that it’s
brilliant art that’s the power of shame
it changes perception I had to quit
allowing where I was in my life my
location and what others wrote on me
they value my purpose once I stopped
being distracted by the graffiti the
colors the images then I could look
deeper and see the true meaning beneath
graffiti is purpose the message within
art just like shame is always purposeful
the very thing that I was running from –
the use of alcohol their graffiti
written on me in the middle school
hallways the experience that I put so
much effort into covering up through
behavior
those very things when treated
differently propelled me to a new
platform for a beautiful and very
relative illustration just look at the
power of TED Talks every TED talk is
someone who stole art where I only saw
graffiti it is evidence of shamed being
repurposed when I am able to take a
shameful experience and use it as a
stepping stone it’s not just me who gets
a new view for a simple example work
with teenagers there’s been times
they’ve come into my office absolutely
devastated because they just received
the rs80 score the future that they had
envisioned is now destroyed based on
their thoughts about their score and
I’ll say to them do you see all the
degrees of my wall let me tell you my
SAT score let’s just put it this way my
SAT score is a really good credit score
it’s just not a good SAT score but
because I no longer have shame around
that number I’m able to share honestly
with them and their shame is replaced
with empathy and compassion once I
realized that shame isn’t mine it
belongs to someone else
and I refuse to partner with the lies
then I can look at shame like graffiti
that contain the message that led me to
a renewed purpose shamed repurposed
allows any of us to start a program run
a 5k write a book or be that friend
that’s a vessel of empathy and
compassion shame can be the graffiti
that covers our purpose but it can also
be the message that influences change in
this world a world that even Charlie can
live in thank you
imaginary friend just signify by raising
your hand okay great
so keep your hands up if your imaginary
friend committed suicide just me huh
well let me tell you about my imaginary
friend Charlie Charlie was very
significant in my childhood he and I did
everything together
and he was absolutely adorable you know
let me just show you a picture of
Charlie and me at Christmastime boy did
I tell you he was adorable look at him
look at his hair it’s perfect but he
wasn’t just a cute kid Charlie also was
a really good student he was an avid
reader we have a picture of Charlie at
school well I’m able to laugh today
at my thought process as a child the
manner which I constructed for Charlie
to leave me is a clear reflection of how
much shame had eroded my young life
within three years of Charlie leaving me
I became a daily drinker at the age of
eleven I experienced my first drunk and
my first blackout and I absolutely fell
in love with alcohol just four years
later at the age of 15 while intoxicated
I fell off a two-story building the
doctors told my father that probably
would not live and if I did I would be
paralyzed I eventually walked out of
that hospital and within days I had a
drink in my hand at the age of 22 while
incredibly and liberated I physically
beat my best friend so badly that she
required
my life was riddled with shame and then
on April 8 1995 I came to in a hospital
bed someone I placed me in a medical
detox unit and on that day my battled
alcoholism ended in my journey to
understand Shane began currently I’ve
been sober for 22 years
and every day I see the devastation of
shame but I get to teach the advantage
of faith in it and I believe that we can
eradicate shame one lie one life at a
time
what is shame how did something
invisible become so destructively
evident in my life
shame is a belief that I’m not good
enough it is an idea that I am who
others say I am and I forfeit the right
to decide myself shame is a gift is a
host of lies in its graffiti Jane is a
gift now it’s not the christmas hanukkah
kind of gift it’s more of the STD type
right
you cannot manufacture it alone
someone else has to give it to you
someone else have to bring you into a
relationship with Shane a child cannot
believe or think that she is stupid
unless someone tells her that she is
Shane comes from the outside social
media TV parents teachers complete
strangers and that buries itself inside
of us and it changes how we view
ourselves in the world
Renee Brown states shame corrodes the
very part of us that believes are
capable of change what that means is if
you comment on my weight I’m not gonna
go home and adopt a healthy lifestyle
I’m gonna go home in a box of Oreos
double stuff at that Shane is a host of
lies
after spending some time with me AAA
sponsor she told me that my mind was a
bad neighborhood she said don’t go up
there alone it’s just too dangerous
now you’ve heard a little bit about my
childhood remember Charlie so you may
tend to agree with her and I do as well
my mind is a bad neighborhood but only
when I believe the lies of shame when I
live a lie as if it is true that I’m
distracted my purpose instead consumed
by behavior drug addiction
bulimia people-pleasing just to name a
few
truth can hurt but it doesn’t create
bondage that’s changed job my job it’s a
bit shame out of work with shame
unemployed the neighborhood can become a
quieter safer place and purpose can take
up residency shame is the graffiti it
covers our purpose when I look at this
picture my first reaction is pumps pumps
that have too much time on their hands
but if you took this exact piece and you
placed it in a museum
I would automatically think that it’s
brilliant art that’s the power of shame
it changes perception I had to quit
allowing where I was in my life my
location and what others wrote on me
they value my purpose once I stopped
being distracted by the graffiti the
colors the images then I could look
deeper and see the true meaning beneath
graffiti is purpose the message within
art just like shame is always purposeful
the very thing that I was running from –
the use of alcohol their graffiti
written on me in the middle school
hallways the experience that I put so
much effort into covering up through
behavior
those very things when treated
differently propelled me to a new
platform for a beautiful and very
relative illustration just look at the
power of TED Talks every TED talk is
someone who stole art where I only saw
graffiti it is evidence of shamed being
repurposed when I am able to take a
shameful experience and use it as a
stepping stone it’s not just me who gets
a new view for a simple example work
with teenagers there’s been times
they’ve come into my office absolutely
devastated because they just received
the rs80 score the future that they had
envisioned is now destroyed based on
their thoughts about their score and
I’ll say to them do you see all the
degrees of my wall let me tell you my
SAT score let’s just put it this way my
SAT score is a really good credit score
it’s just not a good SAT score but
because I no longer have shame around
that number I’m able to share honestly
with them and their shame is replaced
with empathy and compassion once I
realized that shame isn’t mine it
belongs to someone else
and I refuse to partner with the lies
then I can look at shame like graffiti
that contain the message that led me to
a renewed purpose shamed repurposed
allows any of us to start a program run
a 5k write a book or be that friend
that’s a vessel of empathy and
compassion shame can be the graffiti
that covers our purpose but it can also
be the message that influences change in
this world a world that even Charlie can
live in thank you
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