Fancy Fingers

For the very first time in my rather long life I had a professional manicure and it was yummy. It’s been fun to have fancy fingers.

A few years ago I had a couple of pedicures which was also a yummy experience. It was ever so fun to have fancy toes. I kept them up afterwards matching the color with one I found at the store.

I like that color and had the manicurist use my old bottle on my fingers. She suggested that it’s getting old and encouraged me to find a new bottle. I picked her brain on brands, all the products she was using, and where to find the items. Afterwards I went to the store she suggested, scored some bargains and filled up a shopping bag! I want to keep up my fancy fingers.

I realized in the mist of my manicure what it was that kept me from having the experience sooner in my life. When I was in high school way back a thousand years ago, in speech class we had to do a demonstration speech. I was a very awkward freshman that year.

One of my classmates was in a cosmetology program and she did a demonstration speech on doing a manicure and asked for a volunteer. I was up in the front and offered. But she took one look at my fingernails and made a disparaging comment about my nails and found someone else.

I recall looking down at my fingernails and the shame I felt looking at them.

I don’t recall anything else about her speech except her arguing with the teacher about whether it was ok to cut cuticles or not…she said it was and the speech teacher said no. I asked my manicurist whether it was ok or not since I wondered all these years. And yes Mrs. grumpy whatever your name is speech teacher it is ok to cut cuticles!

That comment and my shame about my nails that was made way back in 9th grade kept me from having someone give me a manicure for all the years since!

Shame keeps us, kept me locked up inside and away from fully living life.

This was one very small shaming experience too.

Comments we make towards others can have dramatic effects on them.

I understand that the student needed an easier set of fingernails to tackle for her 3 minute speech. I don’t blame her at all. That comment made in front of a whole classroom of people stayed with me all these years since!

So what I did as the manicurist worked on my nails was to tell her a bit of my story which allowed me to release the shame I’ve carried all these years…finally and thankfully too!

We all experience shame in life in varying degrees too. It’s just a part of the human condition.

Circumstances come together in ways that affect us. I might have been able to brush off that comment if other things had been different in my life up until the moment it was made.

What is most important is that we give ourselves the gift of opening up with someone we can trust about the shame we carry so we can release the load that we carry.

I have to admit that I do feel a tad bit lighter…think I’ll call it the “shame diet”!

What is an experience from the past that you carry and are willing and ready to lose the weight of today? Who might you confide in and share your experience?