Remember Reading Week? A week for reading, usually just before final exams, intended to help students be more prepared for the tests that were just around. As a student, I loved having reading week to cram in all the reading that didn’t happen during the semester. But I’ve always thought schools got reading week wrong. Why not devote a week to reading for pleasure? A week to pick up books you’ve been meaning to get to; a week to think, and read, and be.
A few years ago, I started giving myself a Reading Week – oh sometimes it’s a Reading Weekend, and sometimes it’s a set number of mornings with nothing on my to-do list but “read.” This year, I have given myself 7 days. I cancelled client sessions and made arrangements to get away and read. My master plan includes early morning runs too but so far, those haven’t materialized. Maybe tomorrow.
I have been reading a lot of novels recently, so I devoted this week to reading works on shame and sexual shame. Shame is a normal part of being human but sometimes shame overcomes a person and sets in motion a wide variety of very damaging defense mechanism. One author calls in “soul murder” – the self is so shamed, it gets so small that it seems to cease to be. The shamed self is replaced with a mask, or false self and mask is all that the world sees. Or rather, that hask is all the shamed person hopes the world will see. It’s such a powerful subject…
Here’s my reading list for this week, in case you’re interested:
- Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw
- Letting Go of Shame: Understanding How Shame Affects Your Life by Ronald Potter-Efron
- An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
- Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner
- The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Dan Alender
- The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America’s most Powerful Trial Lawyer by Curtis Wilke
- The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love by Pia Melody
No, I won’t get all of them read this week and yes, some are novels but shame is woven throughout the list. I’m excited and thankful to have time to read, think, and process.
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