I contemplate the many ways I can hurt you, but I don’t. I hold my tongue. Not because I want to – no, I want to hurt you like you have hurt me so many times with your insensitivity, your sarcasm your coping mechanisms. I want to cut you like a knife with my tongue. I want to shred you to pieces with my sharp and eloquently crafted words. I know exactly what to say to make you bleed. I know your history because it is my history. I know you better than you know yourself because I am willing to see you for who you are; the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. And you are not. You are not willing to look at the shadows of your soul. You are not ready to look at the pain you have endured and/or caused. Guilt and shame ensue.

Shame is such an unnecessarily heavy burden we choose to carry; it destroys us from the inside out. Shame is a prison we create for ourselves where we live in the darkness all alone hiding our pain from the world. We are meant to live in community, not isolation, carrying each other’s burdens. I will hold them for you because your burden is light. When we shine a light on shame, we bring our shadow out of the darkness. You can’t see it right now because you are in it. When we surrender to it and sit with it, we can release it and let it go. We must realize that we are not meant to be perfect, but to become whole. By facing what has happened in our lives; the good and the bad, we gain freedom. When we allow ourselves to heal, we give others the freedom to as well.

I know your pain points and I could use them to destroy you, but I don’t. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know we will never be able to recover from it and I don’t want to know what that looks like. You will not be able to un-hear the raw, vicious truth that resides in me. This is the shame I carry. I know that I would only be using your own pain against you because I could and that would destroy US. Instead, I step back, take a deep breath, and shine light on my shadow. I bring it out of the darkness, so my shame doesn’t envelop me. I know there is life and death in the power of the tongue, and I choose to speak life over you. I am now free to create change in the world. I vow to make a conscious choice of love, so my pain doesn’t devour and annihilate you. I restrain myself from the thought of killing you softly with my words. I know I can. I am smart, I am eloquent, and I can use my gifts for evil better than anyone. But, not today – today, I choose to speak life.