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David Roche was born with a severe facial disfigurement. Through his life he has moved from feeling shameful about it to accepting and loving himself. Where are the parallels between this man who has struggled with facial deformity and people with herpes? We all have shame; and it can show up in different ways. Don’t we get used to hiding our self-perceived imperfections from others to get acceptance and love? Sometimes these self-perceived imperfections — this shame — are revealed from behind the dark curtain … then what happens?
"Yet my face is a gift, because my shadow side – my difficulty and challenge – is on the outside, where I have been forced to deal with it."  Watch this interview with David. What do you think?
http://www.soulbiographies.com/2010/11/the-second-glance/
David has a shameful thing that’s always out there — in your face (no pun intended). He has HAD to deal with what that means in his life because everyone sees his face, engages with it; it’s the “locus of the human persona” as he puts it. People with herpes have a shameful thing that might only be dealt with when we’re interested in being intimate. Our shameful thing lies below the surface. But it’s all the same shame — the fear of disconnection, of not being accepted and loved; this shame can express itself in different physical ways.
Our opportunity is to look beyond herpes to who we really are. Who are we underneath it all? What is there inside of us that overshadows herpes even as a problem at all? When we start to discover that, herpes becomes less of a life-ruiner and just the occasional annoyance that it is.
Here are some more clips I found. All I found inspiring and paradigm shifting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBmHgxLY7s4
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103858397
http://citizenshift.org/shameless-art-disability-clip-4 |
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