We have a weekly staff meeting on Monday mornings at 10am we call it Super Happy Fun Time…or SHFT.  (I always thought it was cool how we wanted to change the way we look at meetings and the acronym of our meeting is close to "shift"…but I digress)  Benj often offers us a challenge and a week ago he challenged us to think about things we are afraid of, that scare us, that cause us not to be able to do our jobs well.  One of our team members took this to heart and penned this poem:

Shame and Fear: A Reflection

I sat there and listen as he spoke about

These negative feelings like shame fear and doubt

“go and reflect about what I have said”

we went to our seats and reached in our heads



the far off places we choose not to go

we hide these emotions but leave them to grow

they’re silently fed as we go through our lives

assume they are gone, but they’re really alive

I’m shamed of the problems I still cannot fix

of bad situations thrown in the mix

my family is broken despite what I’ve done

I still blame myself even though I was young



I had no idea what would happen from there

I just became bitter, distant, and scared

I lost all the faith in the God that I’d known
I left him behind, I left him back home

I saw people do things, I didn’t agree

I tried to protect them, and still protect me

I’m shamed that I didn’t try harder to stop

those people from choosing the wrong paths to cross

I fear I will make the same wrong decisions

my parents have made despite my revisions

what if I end up just like how they were

repeating the cycle, creating a stir

Perhaps what I fear, the greatest of all

is that bitterness will become my downfall

I’ve let it all go again and again

but scared it will come back and let itself in

I want to be different, I want to be strong

but sometimes I’m angry from how I’ve been wronged

its pretty ironic that both of these things

influence the other, a shoulder to lean

The shame that I have is the fear I still own

and I fear that those two won’t leave me alone

there so deeply rooted from so many years

of ignoring their presence, not facing these fears

In life the important things are the hardest

to look in the mirror and try to be honest

I know that these changes will take some more time

but now I’m prepared, my life will be mine

I'm not my sister, my father or mother

I will not compare myself to those others

its easier said than it will to be done

but they say that this step is the hardest one