On emotional busking
Jan. 29th, 2023 11:07 amI have been reading John Bradshaw's Healing The Shame That Binds You. It is an interesting book. I was initially put off by the Christian undertones in the first chapter. However, the book seems to have a lot to offer if you can move past that (though at points it can feel like the author looks at everything from the lens of shame - if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like nails). Nonetheless, shame has been omnipresent in my life. I was unable to give a name to it until I watched Brené Brown's Ted Talk on Shame. This was a powerful presentation. Since then, my recognition of shame has been a salient force in navigating life.However, my understanding never grew more. Until this book. "Emotional busking" is a concept that I have thinking of. Fair disclaimer, this is just a conceptual term that I am using to help myself understand the complexities of shame for myself. I do not believe this is in any literature, and am dubious about its use. Although I have since changed, I realized that emotional busking is a result of toxic shame/ toxic family systems. It is a chronic inability to ask for your needs to be met. Maybe you are unaware that you deserve to have your needs met. Or you grew up with family rules dictating that you prioritize someone else. Whatever the case, you do not have expectations of your needs being met.However, in the contrast, you memorize the rare occasions that your needs were met. And you repeat them. That becomes your performance. It is damaging, because one of the internalizations from this performing is that your needs are only met by what you do. 100% external. Bradshaw makes a distinction of a "Human Being" and "Human Doing". When your validation and worth as a person is completely dependent on what you do, you cease to be a human being. What an utterly destructive statement. But I can sense a lot of truth in it. This type of unreliable needs gratification chips away at your self worth. Because as a child, you are 100% dependent on your caregivers. You need them to be good. It must be a fact, because otherwise you would die. That you are not receiving reliable need gratification is also a fact. So, as ego-centric children, we only have one variable that can change. And change it does. You start believing , as I did, not only do you not deserve to have your needs met but also that you are somehow broken inside; irreparable. It is devastating. A man dying from thirst will drink from a swamp. Thus, you become sort of dependent on this occasional pittance of needs gratification.This behavior you learned in the home, becomes how you operate in the world. You busk for your needs to be met, never asking for them or even believing that you deserve them to be met.