Sadly our sexuality was shamed

I have just been listening to a lovely interview with theologian and poet Padraig O Tuama and Meredith Lake on our Australian Radio National’s Soul Search program. In it he speaks about his own experience of a gay man in the church challenged by reparative therapy for his homosexuality and about the rage he felt and found a way to channel into his poetry. It struck me so deeply as I also carry sexual shame, I am not a gay person but from a early age I came to feel shame around my feminine body, also I did not fit the ‘norm’, due to my Dutch heritage I was unusually tall with big skinny feet and at times found getting shoes and my school uniform a huge challenge. I was also teased. Add to this the focus in Catholicism away from pleasure and rebellion against what challenged our real self, well in time I turned against myself and eventually began to use both alcohol and drugs to mask a lot of my shame.

Anyway today I just wanted to share this wonderful interview and say how it touched me. I am off to have my third new denture fitting today and my body has been quite ‘spun’ but I am trying to keep my energy externalizing through exercise, keeping my diet as healthy as possible and getting my dog Jasper enough movement to get his own body processes externalizing and reminding myself to bother relax and breathe. In the interview Padraig speaks about suffocation being the opposite of spirituality. For so long it seemed I sucked up my own energy out of fear, doubt, invalidation, second guessing or shame. Today I am working hard to overcome that pattern.

I hope you also enjoy this interview.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/soul-search/padraig-otuama-on-poetry-rage-and-remaking-religion/102437980