No Shame Home

Last week, my oldest son came home for a visit. While being on his own (kind of) he asks for a lot less. He took his car (after weeks of street parking in Los Angeles) to the drive-through car wash. I knew it was bugging him. Suz brought up the idea of getting his interior cleaned while he visited his Dad for Father's Day. My mother used to tell me a clean car just drives better. I was 17, in high school and she was helping me clean the windows of my 1974 Audi Fox. Note I graduated high school in the early 90s. I loved that Audi Fox and while it didn't run great, it felt better when it was clean.

So we decided to get his car professionally washed. And yes, it needed it - gum wrappers, empty cups, the usual artifacts of a busy twenty-something's life scattered across the seats. When he discovered our little act of service, he asked hesitantly, "Were you upset at how messy my car was?"

"No," I told him honestly.

Moments later, my seventeen-year-old looked at me and said simply, "Yes, we are a no-shame house."

I went along in conversation but I noticed and I was proud. The tiny proud where your heart feels just a little tighter but in a good way. A pinch me way - a this worked out way. Not because we have that completely, but because my kids know we have tried to create it. The no shame thing. Something I'd been trying to cultivate all along - a space where all feelings are welcome, where all truths can be spoken, where love doesn't come with conditions attached to perfection. And to be honest I think my boys are much better at it than I am. I still want to have it all figured out. I still have shame at times about things. The not enoughness, the too muchness - the what if they really knew me-ness. The human stuff.

Creating a no-shame space doesn't mean we don't have boundaries or values. It means we've learned the difference between shame and accountability, between judgment and discernment. It means we've discovered that people heal and grow in the light of acceptance, not in the shadows of fear. I think lack of judgment in our home has become key and it is all about discernment.

I continue to strive to meet myself where I am. It is easier for me to provide this to those I love at times. Okay maybe all the time. When we create space for others to be fully human - messy cars and all - we give them permission to breathe, to be honest, to come home to themselves. And we just might remind ourselves we can do the same.