shame

Cynthia Berg
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

I’ve been on a writing journey with ten amazing women since April when we first met in Alameda, California. We are like sisters now, no longer afraid to show our cracks, our scars, the creases that just cannot be ironed out. Coming together again this past weekend seemed so prophetic, like witches of light circling around a fire to cast new spells into the world — spells of deep desire, spells of hope, spells of courage.

Our leader, our mentor, wasted no time. “What are you afraid to write? What is something so full of shame, you can’t bring yourself to write about it?”

Shame. Holy shit. That’s where we’re going. We’re going out to the crime scene to examine all the evidence, all the terrifying, gory details.

Yet, something told me this is where true leadership resides — the ability to write about the truth, even when it’s scary. Encouraging others to show up fully begins with my ability to show up fully.

My body, the thing I am most afraid to write about. Many people heard the story about how I became known for a dramatic weight loss in 2009. They’ve seen the before and after photos plastered on the internet.

They maybe don’t know how isolated I became, trying to protect myself from other people’s food or from eating out or from the questions people ask about what they should eat and if they should do more cardio. They don’t know how I thought the only way I could stay lean was to make it my job, to think about it constantly during my waking moments, how it crushed me to help other women become smaller when I really wanted to help them play bigger, be more seen and heard just as they were.

Most people don’t know the point in time when I couldn’t do it anymore and how distraught and angry I was about it, how I never posted about it on Facebook and how I found myself living in the middle of nowhere where the only food in town was sold at a gas station and how I went to that gas station every day for a fix, just like the old days when cigarettes were a $1.87 and a six pack of 3.2 beer went down easy on a summer day.

And probably no one knows how I still have to remind myself constantly that my body belongs to me and give myself permission to be seen and embrace every moment in this body as it is and let go of this history so a new one can unfold.

Will you come write with me? Insight Writing workshops are now open for your registration.

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