Inexplicable Shame and Unconditional Friendliness

I’m still working out what it is that I’m doing with this blog, but I want to share something that happened for me about a week and a half ago.

Lama Rod Owens led an online retreat, Liberation through Love.  He gave us a practice he calls 'The 7 homecomings' (detailed in his forthcoming book Love and Rage) in which we visualized our sources of support (buddhas, dharmas, sanghas, ancestors, etc.) in a circle around us radiating care.  This was very challenging for me. I had so many questions about whether different people who have made an impact in my life should be included in the circle. I have complicated relationships with many people who have profoundly impacted me. When I finally was able to visualize some semblance of a circle of support surrounding me, I found so so so much shame and inadequacy in myself.  I just wanted to apologize to them -- to say I'm sorry I'm not living up to what you've given me. I was desperate for approval and simultaneously certain I deserved none.  And then some dam inside me broke, and I sobbed and sobbed.  And then I noticed that my circle's support, their care for me, wavered not an iota.  It felt truly unconditional.  They knowingly accommodated my unworthiness without flinching, almost as if they expected it.  It was so powerful.

This care that my circle radiated has a name in the buddhist teachings: maitri (in Sanskrit)/metta (in Pali). Sometimes maitri is translated as ‘kindness’, but for me the translation with the most juice is ‘unconditional friendliness’ (which Miriam Hall reminded me of). What I discovered is that unconditional friendliness has the power to disarm shame. My shame was still there as I sat in the circle of care, but it lost its teeth. I didn’t have to be ashamed of my shame; that was and is liberating.

I’m not exactly sure how this is connected to my gender identity, but I have some faith that the relationship will come clear if I keep looking at and accommodating whatever comes up.