The 5 Things I Gained From Losing Everything...

(This story was posted on "Maria Shriver's Architects of Change."  It is excerpted from my new memoir "Fire Season: Losing Everything and Finding Myself." With deep gratitude...)

On the morning of November 18th, 1994, my family seemingly had it all: a strong marriage, two kids and a gaggle of rescue pets. My husband Troy and I each had our own businesses that we ran from the home we were renting. We volunteered at our kids’ schools, threw parties, took business trips — it was a great life.

But that night, we went to bed in a burning house. A freak electrical short began smoldering in the walls as we slept, erupting into hellfire in the middle of the night. The fire pressed us up against the windows, gasping for air, our skin burning. We were forced to jump from second story ledges with our children, onto the cement below. The inferno raged, windows blowing out, as the life we had built vanished before our eyes....(read the rest HERE on Maria Shriver's website)


Watch an excerpt of my live interview on AOL.com:

Also on "Maria Shriver's Architects of Change", read Amy Ferris and my co-authored piece "Letting Go of Shame, Thelma and Louise Style"

What I'm Giving Up

When I feel stuck in life, sometimes the simple act of letting go of old things, cleaning out a desk drawer, my closet, or my purse (which is a cry for help right now) can provide a feeling of relief. It seems to magically create a vacuum in my life, making room for new possibilities. But emotional clutter is another issue. 

All the self-help books tell us that the past does not define the future, the wake does not drive the boat, etc. But most of us hold on to things from the past, which keeps us rooted there. We don’t open that “drawer in our head” often enough, and soon we’ve got a jumbled head full of old beliefs and stories that no longer serve us. Or maybe that’s just me. Just like my closet, I need to do an inner purge now and then.

In order to make room for peace, harmony, and balance in my life, these are the things I’m giving up:

Resentment

If I’m feeling resentment, this means I’ve taken on too much, haven’t set limits or healthy boundaries, and now I’m frustrated with a situation I helped create. I can either accept the situation I’ve chosen and find gratitude for it, or I can change it and choose something different. I am gladly giving up resentment, and making room for gratitude.

My Old Story

I grew up the daughter of a convict and a single mom who worked nights in a bar, we used food stamps to buy our groceries and blah, blah, blah. I’ve already lived that story. It held me down long enough. I wrote the memoir. Wrote the essays. The story is over. I don’t want, nor need, to live it any longer. Buh-bye old story. I’m making room for a new story.

Feelings of Worthlessness

Those are going out along with the old story. Period.

I’m making room to step into my full value as a human being.

Shame

Co-authoring Dancing at the Shame Prom changed me in so many positive ways. It really helped me to shed a lot of that old shame. But shame is sneaky. It finds new and different ways to lurk into my psyche: money-shame, aging-shame, body-image shame. Once again, I'm kicking it to the curb, making room for self-acceptance.

Struggle

I have struggled a lot in my life. I’ve struggled financially. I’ve struggled for justice. I’ve struggled in family relationships. But recently, while teaching my son how to swim, I learned something. He was struggling in the water, exerting so much energy while going nowhere, eventually sinking. I kept telling him, “Just relax and let your body float. The water will support you.” And bingo- I made the connection. Stop struggling and float. Let the Universe support me. I’m letting go of struggle to make room for peace.

Writing helps a lot with emotional purging, which is why I’ve always kept a journal. But when writing it out isn’t enough, I pray. I pray for help in letting old beliefs go. Whether I believe in God (I do) or religion (not so much) doesn’t really matter. Words and intention hold great power. Simply stating that I want to give something up (on a daily basis) has changed me greatly.

I’m making room in my life for love, goodness, miracles, joy, and passion.

What are you willing to give up today? What are you making room for? I’d love to hear about it. 

 

Imagine the possibilities...

You Gotta Have Girlfriends

I just had the pleasure (and I truly mean pleasure) of reading a pre-publication copy of  Suzanne Braun Levine's newest e-book, You Gotta Have Girlfriends. For those of you who have been living under a feminist rock for the past few decades (and if you have, it's okay to come out now) in addition to authoring several books on women in their "second adulthood", Suzanne was also the first editor of Ms. Magazine. She has been an icon in the feminist movement and has covered the issue of women and aging so beautifully over the years. In her new e-book, she addresses one of the fullest expressions of our feminine power- friendship.

I had a busy schedule the other day but had set aside an hour to begin reading Suzanne's book. Before I knew it hours had passed without my looking up once.  I was gripped by the stories, and saw myself and my experiences reflected in every chapter. 

This much I know: I would not have made it this far without my girlfriends. They witness me, encourage me, make me laugh when life is painful, and at times, they have literally saved my life. And now as I transition into midlife, that awful, awkward reverse-puberty phase, I can't imagine surviving it without them. I was happy to learn from Suzanne's book that not only do our friendships save us on a metaphoric level, but also on a physical.

"One of the best things a woman can do for her health is to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends, especially after the age of fifty."Hanging out with a small but trusted group of other females reduces damaging spikes in stress hormones, reports New York Times science writer Natalie Angier. A circle of trust can, as she puts it, “mop up the cortisol spills that can weaken the immune system,” which in turn can support additional years of good health.

So there you have it, ladies. Sharing a bottle of wine (or four) and spending the day at Burke Williams Spa is actually a preventative health measure. Cheers!

But as much as we can improve each others' health, some relationships are just plain toxic. Suzanne's book also addresses this. Our friendships with other women can be complicated. Sometimes they are fraught with competition, jealousy, and oversensitivity. And sometimes, they just don't work out. I have recently experienced the loss of a close friendship. This has resulted in many sleepless nights and has been excruciating, to say the least. Reading Suzanne's book helped me to feel less alone.  It was comforting to read the experiences of other women who had been "dumped" by a friend, such as novelist Jacqueline Mitchard, who shared her story with Suzanne. In fact, reading You Gotta Have Girlfriends felt like a heart to heart with a close friend, someone who understood everything I was feeling.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is a celebration of friendship, and a look into our deeply layered relationships. It is both encouraging and uplifting and clear-eyed about healthy boundaries. After reading it, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the close circle of women who surround me, and more at peace about the ones who left the circle.

As Suzanne says so elequently:

"In your gut, you know who your friends are. They are the ones people you choose over all others to spend your fiftieth birthday with. They root for you and they put up with you. They stand up for you and they stand by you. They patiently teach you how to use your smart phone (and can be trusted not to tell your kids you couldn’t figure it out yourself). They listen sympathetically when you need to vent. They know when you are hurt or angry and how to patch things up. And they make you laugh."

Do yourself a favor and buy this book today (at only $1.99, how can you NOT buy it?), and then, share it with ALL your girlfriends.
http://www.openroadmedia.com/you-gotta-have-girlfriends

A few words from some of Suzanne's girlfriends.....

“Suzanne Braun Levine made me understand why I always envied older women . . . life just gets better—more outrageous, more radical, more passionate, less fraught, wiser, deeper, and kinder.” 
—Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues
“Levine takes us beyond the frontier of our own expectations and into a new and hope-filled stage of life.” 
—Gloria Steinem

** I was honored to meet Suzanne at the Women At Woodstock conference last October where she sat in on a workshop Amy Ferris and I were leading, and then to have her on our Women Write their Lives panel at the San Miguel Writers Conference. We are thrilled that Suzanne referenced  Dancing at the Shame Prom in her chapter about overcoming shame. 

Funny Dark Squiggles

"A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic." - Carl Sagan 

Books are what have saved me through out my life. During my tumultuous childhood they were my escape.  In my darkest times, they've guided me. When I was lost, mentors appeared in the form of authors.

I never imagined I would be one of those voices,  never thought my ideas or stories would be of interest to anyone but me. But now I know that every human being has a rich and important story that needs to be shared, and that through sharing our truth, we liberate each other. This is the goal Amy and I have with Dancing at the Shame Prom- that every person who reads it will walk away feeling lighter, feeling connected to others, and less alone in the world.

When I began writing decades ago, it was purely therapeutic. I never intended to publish or share with anyone. Eventually I was nudged by friends, teachers, and my husband to put my work out into the world. There have been countless times during my writing years where I felt my work was pointless.But in the past month, I've had a couple experiences that have shown me how important it is for me, and for all of us, to share our stories.

In January I received a letter from a gentleman in Saudi Arabia referring to a story I wrote in The Power of Positive. The story is about Evan, then four years old, who taught me the importance of perseverance. This gentleman, Hamsa, who has a daughter the same age as Evan, was so inspired by the story, he translated it into Arabic and emailed it to all his friends. This is one of the reasons I like to write for the Chicken Soup series. First, they are a group of positive, kind people, and with their incredible circulation, an un-famous author like me can connect with people all over the world that I wouldn't normally reach.

The second nod from the universe came when I attended my first gun regulation meeting with Moms Demand Action. The L.A. Chapter leader got up and introduced herself, and then told us that she'd been faced with so many challenges in trying to start the L.A. group  she was going to quit. But then she said she'd read my blog A Single Bullet, and knew she had to keep going.  I had no idea she'd read my blog. I'd never even met her before.

This is the magic that Carl Sagan spoke of. That one person's story could give another the hope they need to push on. That in spite of thousands of miles and oceans and the cultural differences that divide us, a writer in Los Angeles can find common ground with a father in Saudi Arabia through a series of funny dark squiggles on paper.

A few weeks ago, I was at the San Miguel Writer's Conference, where Amy and I moderated the Women Write Their Lives panel, encouraging others to write their truth. Truth resonates...and as each woman on our panel spoke hers, you could see people in the audience with tears in their eyes. They needed to hear these women's stories, and we need to hear theirs.

Women Write Their Lives Panel: Samantha Dunn, Brooke Elise Axtell, Sarah Stonich, Laura Davis,Amy Ferris, Hollye Dexter, Suzanne Braun LevineTracy J. Thomas, Brooke Warner

Our stories connect us at the most human place. Your stories, my stories, every story matters. You don't have to be a writer to share your stories, but please share them. Tell them, sing them, paint them, pass them down. You never have any idea how another person might be transformed by your truth.

So go on - put some funny dark squiggles on paper. Work some magic....

One Small Step

This is a blog about achieving a big dream one small step at a time, a philosophy I owe to an interview I read with author John Berendt.  Berendt’s novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was originally turned down by his agent. She said it was too localized (Savannah, Georgia), that no one would ever read it. Undaunted, he found another agent who loved the book and sold it with ease. Problem was, no one was buying it. So he committed to doing one thing every day to promote his book. One thing every day adds up to 365 actions in a year. Midnight eventually sold more than 2.7 million hardcovers, was on the New York Times best-seller list for four years, and was made into a film, making Berendt a rich man.

Moral of the story: Persistence + small simple steps = Success.

I was so inspired by John’s story, as Amy and I are facing a similar uphill struggle with our book, Dancing at the Shame Prom. The publishing industry ain’t what it used to be. Authors are handed their shiny new books, placed on an iceberg and floated off into the deep arctic waters of self- marketing. We’re overwhelmed, to say the least. But one thing every day? That’s something we can do. So Amy and I made a pact to each do one thing every day to promote our book, adding up to over 700 actions in a year. Not bad. And we're keeping each other accountable by emailing what our one thing is each day.

But this method isn’t just for books. It can be applied toward any goal.

For instance, I feel overwhelmed by clutter, and dream of being better organized. So, I started with one pile of mail on my desk. The next day, my jewelry box. The next, the sock drawer. Next up - my purse.  Small actions. 365 actions in a year.

I also want to lose weight. I can make one choice every day toward better health. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Skip the second glass of wine and have a sparkling water. Do sit ups while I watch TV.  Just one change a day. 365 actions toward weight loss in a year.

Here are some more ideas.

Say you want to write? Write one page every day. 365 pages in a year. Sounds like a book to me.

You want inner peace? One action a day: Take a walk, meditate for five minutes, pray, write in a journal, call a friend. 365 actions more peaceful by the end of the year.

You want to find love? Do one loving thing every day. For yourself. For others. For the world. 365 acts of love can only create a love avalanche.

Anyway, you get the idea. By breaking a dream down into small simple steps, anything can be achieved.And it helps to have a partner to be accountable to, because it's easy to forget small simple things.

Let’s all choose one important goal, take a small step toward it today, and see what happens.

PS…

John Berendt’s very kind words about our book, Dancing at the Shame Prom:

"These are startlingly honest stories of deep-down, lingering hurt, bravely and eloquently told. Once you start reading you can't stop. The effect is oddly cleansing."

- John Berendt

 

Interview with Sean Strub, founder of Poz magazine

In the new book Amy Ferris and I co-edited, Dancing at the Shame Prom, twenty seven brave women share deeply personal stories of a shame that held them back, and how they became empowered by letting it go. This book is only the beginning of an ongoing movement. We plan to continue this conversation in workshops around the world (Woodstock NY this October, San Miguel, Mexico Feb 2013, Costa Rica, June, 2013) Amy and I plan to drag shame out of the closet and eradicate it from the planet. In order to do that, we need to bring men into the conversation.  In the next few months, we'll be featuring a series of interviews with some very interesting men.

Below is my interview with Sean Strub, filmmaker, author, activist, founder of POZ magazine ( for the HIV positive community) and Mamm magazine (for women impacted by breast and gynecological cancers). Sean's accomplishments are too many to list here,  so I included his bio at the bottom. Here are his thoughts.

Can you tell us a little bit about your life path, and what led you to it?

I grew up Catholic in Iowa, influenced by the social justice tradition in the church, as well as civic-minded feminists on my paper route, and became an activist at early age, protesting the Vietnam War, advocating feminism and progressive causes and, eventually, LGBT rights.  Most of my adult life I've been engaged in the HIV/AIDS epidemic; I acquired HIV around 1980, when I was 22.

How do you, personally, define the word shame?

Shame is a secret we carry that hurts oneself more than it hurts others.  Shame doesn't exist on its own; it is a symptom of the mind's management of trauma.

Women seem to carry shame, and let it make them small in the world. Do you think men process or carry shame differently than women?

I'm not very good about generalizing differences between men and women, but I think there are many different ways people carry shame, or how it gets expressed in their life.  How shame is managed is important, so I suspect there are lessons to be learned from all genders.

In your experience, how does shame affect the men in our society?

Traditional constructs of masculinity, whether expressed by a men, women, trans or intersexed persons, carry expectations about what constitutes shame.  It seems that at times the most acceptable masculine emotion is around anger, dominance or violence; these are outward expressions of a deeper inner pain that has often (and destructively) been repressed by expected masculine norms.

The women who wrote for Dancing at the Shame Prom are role models and leaders in society. Many of them became successful either in spite of, or because of, the shame they carried. In other words, they were able to turn poison into medicine. Has Shame played a role in your own life, and in setting you on your life path?

Enormously so.  My entire life has been a struggle over my physical corpus, my body, and how it was violated as a child. The traumas I experienced (namely, but not entirely, physical and sexual abuse) were more defining to my character, life and accomplishments than anything else.  Whether it is about sexual freedoms, reproductive choice, combating a virus, shaking off Catholicism, they all ultimately boil down to who is in charge here, who is making the decisions that so profoundly affect my body.   My lifelong commitment to social justice activism was shaped to a large degree by traumas, and this sense of a lack of control over my body, that I experienced as a child.  Trauma, whether it is from physical, psychological or sexual abuse at the hands of another, or whether it is from an incident or life transition, like the loss of a loved one, divorce, serious accident or even loss of a job or relationship, is shame's evil twin. Where there is one, if you dig deep enough, you'll usually find the other.

Can shame ever be a good thing?

Per my previous answer, I would turn it around and ask can trauma ever be a good thing?  One of the most wonderful aspects of being is our remarkable ability to learn from every kind of experience in life and, if we're looking for it, we can usually make sure some of the things we learn are good things.  So shame isn't something I would recommend, nor would I recommend trauma, but they are both parts of every life.  I don't think anyone exits this mortal coil without having experienced them to some degree.  How we react to and handle them is what is important.

We can also impose shame on ourselves, in reaction to specific acts or attitudes, but even those are typically underlain by traumas that make our minds work the way they work, which makes us do the things we do.

What is on your personal “dream-agenda” for the future?

Recognizing greed as a disease that should be treated as a mental health condition.  Requiring all students to be continuously enrolled from K through 12 in ethics, civics, art, music, nutrition and sustainable gardening classes.

Amy Ferris and I thank you so much for participating, Sean, for your thoughtful answers, and mostly for the work you do in the world.

Take a few minutes to watch Sean's short film, HIV Is Not a Crime.

See seroproject.com for more info on Sean's work.

Sean's BIO:
Sean Strub is well known as an activist, writer and entrepreneur. Sean has founded many successful fundraising, publishing and marketing organizations, virtually all in support of progressive social change efforts. He founded POZ in 1994. Strub's companies have also launched POZ en Español, Mamm (for women impacted by breast and gynecological cancers) and Milford Magazine (a regional title distributed in the Delaware River Highlands area of northeast Pennsylvania).

He has written extensively on corporate social responsibility, smart growth and land development issues, direct marketing and AIDS, among other topics. Sean co-authored, with Dan Baker and Bill Henning, Cracking The Corporate Closet, (Harper Business, 1995) and co- authored, with Steve Lydenberg and Alice Tepper Marlin, the seminal guide to corporate social responsibility, Rating America's Corporate Conscience, (Addison-Wesley, 1987).

Sean's involvement in the social responsibility and ethical investment movements dates to the early 1980's, when he worked with Alumni Against Apartheid and the Harvard Endowment for Divestiture through his direct marketing firm which specialized in social change and mass marketed fundraising techniques. Direct mail campaigns created by Sean have been labeled "slick" by The Wall Street Journal, "highly sophisticated" by The New York Times, and "inventive and unusual" by Business Week.

Strub has also produced theatre and large-scale fundraising events. In 1992, at the Perry Street Theatre in New York, he debuted his production of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, written by and starring David Drake. The Obie Award-winning hit became one of the longest running one-person Off-Broadway shows ever.

In 1990, Strub was a Democratic candidate for the US Congress from New York's 22nd congressional district, running as an openly (but incidentally) gay/HIV+ man. He was defeated by a former member of Congress by fewer than 600 votes.

He has received numerous awards and honors from AIDS organizations, community and professional groups, including the 1995 AIDS Action Foundation's National Leadership Award, the 1996 Cielo Latino Companero award from the Latino Commission on AIDS and Los Angeles-based Being Alive's Spirit of Hope award in 1997.

A native Iowan, Sean attended Georgetown and Columbia Universities. He lives in Milford, Pennsylvania and New York City.

The Book in my Hands...

After over a year of hard work, phone conferences with authors, long editing hours, many, many meetings, downloads that didn’t work and frustration and emails…I am finally holding Dancing at the Shame Prom, our book, in my hands.

My husband bought a great bottle of wine and we toasted.

“How do you feel right now?” he asked, “You must be so excited!”

I had always envisioned that I’d be running around the house hooting and hollering when I finally received the book. But what I felt was much quieter. I held it, felt the weight of it, turned it over in my hands. I closed my eyes and exhaled.

The next morning I woke at 5am, and sat in the quiet of my living room reading it from  cover to cover. What I felt was… humbled. Blessed. Honored. Transformed. A little bit afraid. Grateful.

I felt blessed to have been given the responsibility of helping to usher these stories into the world alongside my friend and partner Amy Ferris. What a magic carpet ride it’s been! And an intense lesson in how to collaborate with love and respect. During this year we’ve learned to allow each other good days and bad, not to overreact to miscommunications, to always have each others’ backs, and to put friendship above business. We learned what each of our strengths and weaknesses were. I let Amy shine where Amy shines best, and she does the same for me. We’ve learned the art of harmonious collaboration.

I felt deeply honored to have been a part of each of these women’s journeys. For many of them (and I might venture to say for all of them) writing the essay was a life-changing experience. We had some emotional phone calls. We pushed the writers to go deeper, to go to that uncomfortable place where the heart of truth resides. The results were that we irritated and pissed off a few of them, but it paid off in the essays, and the book shines with truth and courage.

I felt transformed. Releasing shame changes you. You can almost feel the proverbial shackles falling away. Even reading about it changes you. If you haven’t read the book yet, I implore you to, because I truly believe this book has a little bit of magic in it. Because each writer put so much of her soul and truth into it, I believe, as Gloria Feldt said, that this book just might change your life.

I felt a little bit afraid. It’s scary for all of us to open ourselves to judgment from the public. I’ve had a few phone calls from writers who said they were kind of a wreck when they saw the book had been released. Some hadn’t even told their families yet. We are all taking a huge risk, exposing our underbelly, being vulnerable in front of the world. (So if any of you out there have read the book and want to offer a few words of encouragement to the authors, don’t be shy! You can post here, or on our facebook page.)

Above all I felt grateful for Amy Ferris, and all the gorgeous writers in this book: Lyena Strelkoff, Amy Friedman, Teresa Stack, Nina Burleigh, Victoria Zackheim, Monica Holloway, Liza Lentini, Tracy J. Thomas, Julie Silver, Marcia G. Yerman, Rachel Kramer Bussell, Sharon Doubiago, Kristine Van Raden, Kate Van Raden, Jenny Rough, Kedren Werner, Colleen Haggerty, Laurenne Sala, Amy Wise, Robyn Hatcher, Meredith Resnick, Brooke Elise Axtell, Marianne Schnall, Elizabeth Geitz, and Samantha Dunn. This is “our” book. I share the honor with each of them. Their courage and beauty made it what it is.

Thank you to all of you who have bought it- ( just pre-orders alone have already put it on the top 100 in "Emotions" on Amazon!) and thanks to those who will, and thanks to all of you who have encouraged us on this journey every step of the way. 

Grace in Bethlehem

December brings my birthday and the holidays. As a child, it was my favorite time of year, but these last ten years, being estranged from my family, I tend to get the blues. My sweet husband hangs Christmas lights and wears a Santa hat to cheer me up, and I do my best…focusing on the kids, playing Christmas music, making ornaments, baking cookies, watching my favorite holiday movies.

This year on my birthday, I would receive the greatest and most unexpected of gifts. I had just gotten back from a day of volunteer work, wrapping gifts for needy families. (I’ve found that the best cure for the blues is to get out of my own head and help someone else, so you see, I did this for completely selfish reasons.) I was unwinding after a long day when my brother Ted, who had flown in from Seattle, came walking up my stairs with a big red bow wrapped around him. My best friends Erin and Beth had picked him up from the airport and smuggled him in. Ted and I only found each other six years ago. We had lived a whole lifetime apart, and this was the first time I’d ever spent my birthday with him. We had dinner with my children that night, all of us together, laughing, celebrating. Six years ago, this was a scene I never could have imagined.

Several days later I was fortunate to tag along with Troy for a leg of the Wilson Phillips tour that took us to Pennsylvania, where my angel-friend and writing partner Amy Ferris lives. With our deadline looming, it was a perfect opportunity for Amy and I to buckle down and get some work done on our book “Dancing At The Shame Prom”.

I had my sleeves rolled up, ready to work. But what I didn’t expect was for those five days to be so inspired and spirit-filled. Walking in the brisk cold through Bethlehem at Christmas time was magical. Each street was lined with historic brick buildings, cobblestone churches, and graveyards dating back to the 1700s. Vendors sold handmade wares in their tiny Christmas Village. At night, candles glowed in every window of every house. And Bethlehem is where Amy and I sat together in an ancient haunted hotel, by a roaring fire and a glittering fifteen-foot Christmas tree, reading these heart-stopping, beautiful, honest, raw essays sent by our brave writers.

When someone chooses to open their heart and let you in, it is nothing short of a miracle. That’s what each writer has done for this book, and soon we will be able to share them with you. I felt so blessed to be midwifing this project, to be trusted with these intimate, courageous, hope-filled stories. How perfect that this book should be birthed in Bethlehem, during a time of hope and lovingkindness, by the sparkle of holiday lights.

I know it wasn’t the actual Bethlehem - just an old abandoned steel town in Pennsylvania - but I felt something magic there. Maybe I’m making too much of the connection – but I don’t think so. A blessing is a blessing, no matter where you find it. I found mine in the arms of my brother, and my friends, dancing and laughing with Troy, holding hands with Amy. And I experienced my true Christmas miracle through a bevy of beautiful writers, in the heart of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Hollye and Amy Ferris discuss the finer points of BLURG

Hollye and Amy in tiaras.

SHA-SHA-SHA-SHAME

(from Amy Ferris)

Okay, so Hollye and I had our Monday morning with Hollye & Amy talk. Sort of like Tuesdays with Morrie, but ... not. And, as usual, we caught up with life and each other and ... talked about shame. Our shame, our Shame Prom facebook page, and our hot off the presses spanking new gorgeous website, and our anthology - THE SHAME PROM. Holy Batwoman! And we realized, found that we - Hollye and I - are somewhat ashamed that we're not getting enough traction and "likes" on our Shame Prom Facebook page. People are not lining up to watch our fabulously funny shame out-takes and videos on YouTube, folks are not lining up to like us. 


Luckily, I was still in bed, and could creep and crawl under the covers. I mean, here we are, two amazing women with unbelievable accomplishments not to mention husbands and friends, and we're trying to understand why folks are having an allergic reaction to our brilliant and LIFE CHANGING movement - the SHAME PROM movement. And then it happened, Hollye said five magical words: DANCING AT THE SHAME PROM... and in that moment, I pushed the covers off of me (okay, more figuratively than literally) and I smiled and I said to Hollye, God, that's brilliant. It feels so happy, celebratory. It feels less sad. Less tragic. And of course Hollye made it even sound sexy, and no longer scary. 


The thing is (and I will let Hollye continue this thought, idea, realization... epiphany) we want everyone to celebrate their shameful experiences. The one's that make us cringe. Crawl into a ball. Hide under the covers. Change our phone numbers. We want to share our stories, release the gunk, prove we're not alone in doing silly, stupid, hurtful, painful, and unbearable things. We want to open the doors - literally - and dance to the beat of our own - and others - bravery and courage. 

We're finding SHAME has a very bad reputation, not to mention a really bad rap. 

We want to change that. 

Okay, here's Hollye ...

Yep. We discovered that although we rejoice in the releasing of it, most people are repelled by the word  “Shame”. They don’t want to “Like” it, or watch You Tube videos about it, and GOOD GOD NO they don’t want to talk about it. The word alone carries a negative connotation. When someone said “Shame on you” it meant you were a BAD person who had done a BAD thing. Most of us have come to a point in our lives where we feel we are done with that bullshit. I know I am.

But shame is sneaky. 

It hid itself in the corners of my psyche, in the stories I didn’t tell. It lodged itself in my heart in the moment that I let someone else define me, or control me, or belittle me. It hung over me like a sad umbrella, keeping the sun away. And until I learned how to find it, it was keeping me small. Very small.

Our objective with this anthology is to RELEASE it, to sweep it out of the corners and shoo it away, and we want you to join us! We want to connect with you and share this glorious feeling.  But there’s that problem…that icky word.

Okay so how about we don’t call it shame. Let’s call it “blurg”.

I felt blurg in my childhood because my father was in prison, and because of things people did to me, and because I thought I was a mistake and didn’t belong anywhere.

I felt it as a young woman when I betrayed myself trying to gain someone else’s love, or when I shared my body with someone who did not value me.

So I wrote a book and got it all out and it changed me. And although I’ve more or less healed myself of the past shame, er, I mean, BLURG,  it still creeps up on me. I start to feel it when I chide myself for gaining five pounds, when I see the age in my face that society tells me is not acceptable, when I’m the only one at the dinner party who doesn’t get the intellectual reference because I’m a college dropout.

Yes, I feel BLURG.

Oh, that’s ridiculous. Let’s call it what it is - it’s SHAME. A universal emotion, just like fear, love, jealousy, desire. It’s what makes us human. It's what binds us. Connects us. Lifts us. Spurs us into action. 

(From Amy and Hollye)

Dancing at the Shame Prom was conceived and born out of courage, passion, compassion, joy, and self-awareness. It's not a place for wallowing in self-pity, or sorrow. Well, you can wallow for just a little bit, but we're grabbing your hand, and we're taking you out onto the dance floor, and we’re not letting BLURG hold any of us back any more. 

Care to dance with us?

*start small...tell us a tiny little story that you never tell. post it anonymously if you like. Go on...get it out. you'll feel better. Here's my story...

The Stories I Don't Tell

It’s funny that I’m co-editing a book on shame, because if you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have said I was a shameless woman. What I mean by that is I don’t have a lot of regret. I made some mistakes when I was young, but that’s what youth is for. I feel good about my life in general. And yet…

There were some things I just never talked about. That’s what interests me now: the things we don’t talk about. Shame is the part of your story that you don’t tell. You may not dwell on it, but it dwells in you.

For instance, all my life, I tried to push away from the truth of who I was and what I came from. In the Shame Prom, I write about the fact that I was an unwanted pregnancy, born to two juvenile delinquents. My father was in jail when I was born, and would end up spending my entire childhood in prison. My mother, a 16-year old rebel, became a single mom who worked nights in bars. We used food stamps to buy our groceries.

But I wanted to be a Brady Bunch kid. I was a cheerleader. I wore the right clothes. I got good grades. Not until the last several years, after I wrote my memoir, did I start talking about my history. In denying that part of my reality, I became a fractured woman plagued by anxiety attacks and fear. Once I finally claimed that part of my story, it no longer held power over me. It freed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined, and opened new doors in my life.

I remember when Rob Lowe’s big sex tape scandal broke in the 90’s. Soon after, he was on Saturday Night Live, poking fun at himself over it. He never made excuses or tried to hide it. Suddenly, no one cared anymore. He claimed his shame, and it no longer had power over him. Look at him now- successful career, happy marriage and family. When you claim your truth, you take away the blackmailer’s power. YOU hold the power.

So that’s what this Shame Prom movement is all about. So far our Shame Prom writers have turned in gorgeous essays about the stories they never told:

Elizabeth Geitz, an Episcopal Priest and leader of her community, reveals her shame over her mother’s suicide

Kristine Van Raden comes to terms with the mother-guilt of her daughter’s eating disorder, and her daughter, Kate, writes a companion piece

Laurenne Sala struggles with her teenage shame over her gay dad

Julie Silver recounts the day she was banished from her loving community, and how she found redemption

Robyn Hatcher tells a fascinating story about carrying the shame of her race

Rachel Kramer Bussell, an erotica writer who would appear to be shameless, tells her  secret – she is a hoarder

If you think you don’t carry any shame, ask yourself…are their parts of my story I leave out? Parts of my history I’d rather not talk about?

There are for me.

Everyone knows I’m married to a wonderful man for 22 years, but few people know I had a previous failed marriage.

And no one, I mean NO ONE knows what I am about to reveal to you now, for it is perhaps my greatest shame ever.

In 1982, I voted for Reagan. If you defriend me on facebook right now, I’ll understand. I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.

So friends, this is what our mission is about, and Amy and I want you join us. Let’s get it all out, free ourselves, connect with each other, support each other, celebrate all we have survived and the strong women and men we are.

Let’s move from Shame-full to Shame-less.

What is Shame?

image courtesy of  shamelessmag.com/

One of my favorite quotes by Julia Cameron is this: “Anger is meant to be acted upon, not acted out.” So simple, and so true.  This statement alone has helped me navigate so many difficult situations in my life. When I begin to feel angry about something, I think…wow, there is something I need to act upon here. My boundaries are being crossed, I’m hurt, I need to speak up and establish my boundaries clearly. If I don’t, I will carry that anger, and it will be projected onto people who don’t deserve it.

And so it is with shame. Shame, like every emotion we have, is there to send us a message. It is an emotion that initially that tells us “this isn’t right for me”. At times, it can be good for us- it acts as our conscience. We stole from the corner market, we feel ashamed (this isn’t right for me) and we don’t do it again. We’ve hurt someone unnecessarily, we bullied someone…we feel shame, act upon it ( apologize, discontinue the behavior) let it go, and move forward. When we act upon it, we are enlightened and changed by the experience. When we don’t, we either turn inward against ourselves, or project our shame onto others.

When we carry negative emotions like shame, fear, anger, regret, jealousy, the weight of it wears us down. It steals our joy, sabotages relationships, even weakens our immune system. When held inside, each of these emotions picks up a partner. Fear’s partner is paralysis. Anger’s partners are suppression and rage. Regret’s partner is worthlessness. Jealousy’s partner is criticism (of self and others). And Shame’s partner is silence. It is miraculous how your life can shift by letting go of that “partner”.

Letting go of Shame’s partner is as simple as breaking the silence. 

It is the carrying of Shame that Amy Ferris and I would like to eradicate from this planet, through sharing stories in our anthology The Shame Prom, and in our workshops.

Dancing at the Shame Prom Website

Announcing The Shame Prom Workshops

Get out the champagne- this is a LAUNCH!

I am so thrilled to be stepping into this new journey of my life, launching Dancing at The Shame Prom, which is not only an anthology (Seal Press, 2012) but is sure to be a movement. Amy Ferris and I have helped each other to write honestly, we've joined hands exposing our secrets and fears to the world. We found that it's much easier to do when someone is holding your hand.  The world has since rewarded us in more ways than we ever could have imagined. Now we are determined to help others free themselves of the baggage of carrying shame silently. We want to hold your hand now, and help you let go of what's holding you back from living FREE and uninhibited. 


We have a new facebook page which we'd love you to "like".  Every day on this page we will inspire, inform, and celebrate.
Shame Prom facebook page


Tracy Thomas, the brilliant co-founder of iPinion Syndicate ( and the builder of that savvy website) is now building us an interactive website where women and men from all over the world can meet, become friends, and share their stories. We'll also feature videos and essays from our Shame Prom authors, plus from some other writers who we think are pretty darn fantastic. Set to launch mid September. 


And now, Amy and I will be travelling, leading Shame Prom workshops all over the world. First stop, Los Angeles on October 16th. November,  we'll be at Pages and Places Book Festival, and then February 16-19, San Miguel Writer's Conference in Mexico. 


Here's the scoop-


OCTOBER 16, Los Angeles
You're invited to join us at a private artist's residence in Los Angeles for this intimate workshop. We will wear our Shame tiara's and share our stories. Led by Amy Ferris and Hollye Dexter, this will be a PROM like you've never experienced, filled with creativity, writing, sharing, good food, tears and laughter, and chocolate.  Whose afraid of shame? We're going to let it RIP, and then, let it R.I.P. Are you ready to shed the old Prom Dress of Shame and celebrate with us?
$200 for the day includes lunch, 5 hour workshop, and a goodie bag. 
$175 if you register before October 5th.
Dancing at the Shame Prom Website


FEBRUARY 16-19, 2012
San Miguel Writer's Conference
Amy and Hollye will be leading several workshops, including an intensive five hour Writing/Righting Your Shame workshop.
Also featured at this conference: Laura Davis, Margaret Atwood, Joy Harjo, Naomi Wolf and many more.
San Miguel Writer's Conference

WHAT IS A SHAME PROM WORKSHOP?
It started as a dialogue between two great girl friends, and then it turned into a collaborative blog. Hollye Dexter & Amy Ferris shared their SHAME stories - the one's they've kept hidden in the dark - for the whole world (well, their world anyway) to read & see. Amy & Hollye coined it THE SHAME PROM and invited everyone to the dance. The response was unbelievable, huge. MASSIVE. Turns out, EVERYONE has a shame story; funny, sad, poignant, miraculous, life changing, jaw-dropping and holy moly universe moving stories. Hmm, they thought... let's see if we can get some of the best writers in the world (well, their literary world) to contribute to this PROM ... and lo and behold, 25 extraordinary WOMEN (writers, musicians, directors, activists, journalists, authors, artists) said YES to SHAME! An anthology was born, and SEAL PRESS bought it. And now we bring you: THE SHAME PROM WORKSHOP, where EVERYONE gets to share their story, write their life, release their limited beliefs and yes, dance the night away.

How I Got Published (in a Totally Random Way)

When I got the phone call that Seal Press had bought our anthology Dancing at The Shame Prom, I was cautiously optimistic. When I got the email, I smiled…a little. When my agent sent the contract for review, I carefully read it over and asked the pertinent questions. And when my writing partner Amy called and said, in so many words, WHY AREN’T YOU OVER THE MOON? THIS IS GREAT NEWS! I, the girl who’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop said, “I’ll believe it when I have the signed contract in my hand.”

So…here it is. The signed contract. In my hand. And after I exhaled, I started to smile a little, then a lot, and finally decided to let myself celebrate this. My husband and I toasted, and I took this picture, wanting to remember the importance of the moment.

I lied in bed last night reflecting on the journey that led me here, and I realized that nothing happened as I had planned. It didn’t go the way the “How To” books said it would, nor the way I plotted it out in my head, and maybe that’s why I didn’t quite trust it. I wasn’t in control!

I had spent a grueling six years writing and rewriting my memoir Only Good Things, never intending to publish it. I wrote it because it was in me, and I was compelled to get it out. And then, for my birthday in 2009, I took an intensive writing workshop at the home of a writing hero, Joyce Maynard. A few weeks later she asked if she could share my work. I assumed she meant with future classes, and said of course.

Months later, I got an email from a literary agent in New York, saying she had read my work and wanted to read more. I ran around the house jumping and shouting, out of my mind with excitement. Never in a million years did I think anyone would be interested in reading what I wrote. It was just therapy for me. But now it looked as though my life was on the verge of a big change.

I took that as a cue: time for me to take the helm and chart out my course. I worked my butt off, writing every second my son was in preschool, never answering the phone, letting the dust bunnies take over the house. Back and forth the manuscript went for six months, and in the interim, I read all the "How To" books and queried a few other agents as well. But this agent, she was my DREAM agent. She was the one I had to have. She was part of my “plan”.

And then the plan….crashed.

I started this blog two years ago because of the crushing (but kind) rejection I finally got from that dream agent. (that blog is here:http://hollyedexter.blogspot.com/2010/02/crushed.html) She liked the writing, the story, but she said that ultimately, it was just too tough in today’s market to sell a memoir without a “platform” (think Snooki, Bristol Palin…) and she couldn’t take that risk.

I was overwhelmed with feelings of failure and had nowhere to go with them. So I blogged for the first time, and sent it out into cyberspace. And this amazing woman who I had just connected with on She Writes, commented on my blog. This is what she said:

HOLLYE: never ever ever give up! i am actual proof of two agents saying no to my book, one to my face, and that was hard ... and then i got a fabulous agent, and then i got an amazing publisher ... and now my memoir is out in the world and it's so frickin' liberating and scary and writing memoirs is scary scary scary...so DON'T GIVE UP. WRITE. be brilliant. be bold. fuck 'em. something amazing will happen. love, Amy Ferris

I was wowed by this new friend who barely knew me, being so supportive, and not competitive. And so I bought her book Marrying George Clooney, which I devoured. Her writing was so honest and accessible, reading it felt like having a chat with your best friend. I added Amy on facebook, and discovered that we had the same birthday. Long story short, Amy Ferris and I became the best of friends after that. We would have long talks about life, and love and disappointments and courage. We started to write a few essays and blogs together, never competing, always championing one another. And one thing we agreed on – as writers we were going to be bold, be brave, and always tell the absolute truth. We challenged each other to write truthful essays about things we had tried to hide in the past. We’d agree to put a scary, revealing blog out on the same day….and WOW- the responses we’d get were overwhelming. Mostly private messages, people would reveal their innermost secrets to us, and it became clear that everyone was carrying some degree of hidden shame, and thought they were the only one. Now we had a mission. It wasn’t about making money or getting published. We had to keep writing in this vein to let others see they weren’t alone. And as we wrote these revealing pieces, other outlets started picking up our blogs. Before you knew it I had essays published and online webzines asking me to write for them. (And all I had ever wanted to do was to blog about my rejection!)

I diligently edited and reworked my memoir all year long. Meanwhile the phone conversations and blogs with Amy continued until we realized, after seeing one public persona after the next fall on his sword with shame, this was not just a year-long phone conversation that two women were having. This was a conversation that the whole world needed to be having. It needed to be a book. We knew amazing writers who could write brilliantly on this subject. And so, together Amy and I wrote a proposal, and the agent loved it, and the first publisher we went to – the one we really wanted- bought it! (and by the way, everyone told us it was impossible to sell an anthology in this market.)

Suddenly the memoir I had just spent eight years obsessing over was not the centerpiece of my life. The “plan” I made was scrapped, and in its place, something else popped up and tapped me on the shoulder. A calling, I guess you could say.

So what is the moral of my publishing story? When I was fixated on the ONE way my writing career was supposed to go, I almost missed something that was right in front of me, or in our case, something that was always inside of us. Amy said in that first blog comment “Be bold, be brave, something amazing will happen.” And something amazing did happen. I found an amazing friend, we’re writing an amazing book, we’re surrounded by amazing writers, and I have a fucking contract in my hand!

Now that is AMAZING!

I haven’t abandoned my memoir. I still believe it will find it’s way into the world, but I also believe the timing wasn’t right, and I couldn’t push it no matter how I tried. It was a hard lesson in “Surrender 101” for me. I now understand that I can’t push a flower to bloom, and likewise, my life path unfolds at it’s own pace, in it’s own unique way. I learned to write only what was true for me, no matter what the industry, or the books, or “they” said. I learned to stay true to myself, to keep writing in the face of rejection, and to do what felt right instinctually. I still don’t have a “platform”. Let’s face it, I’m never gonna be Snooki…and that’s a good thing.