Episode 7: “Vanilla”
The 5th C - Choice
I married into a family of ice cream fanatics. When I was 19, my future husband and I went to visit his family over spring break, and being the sweet hosts that they are, they took us to Baskin Robbins Ice Cream shop for a treat. I came from a household that was anti-sugar, so I was not familiar with how many ice cream flavors could possibly be available on Planet Earth. Amazingly, B&R had thirty-one flavors to choose from! I was blown away.
As I stood and marveled while everyone else’s ice cream began to melt, l felt a little pressure to make my decision. Not knowing if I’d like any of the “new world” of flavor I panicked and chose vanilla! Part of my decision was based on making sure I didn’t waste this gift, because if I didn’t like the new flavor, I’d be stuck with it (would have been a “shame” to throw it away). The other part was the fear of the unknown. “Sugar shame” was weighing heavy on my mind from my past. “It’s bad for you, so keep it simple and don’t even tempt yourself or try anything new because you might like the new flavors and then you’ll be hooked”.
My husband’s family still teases me about that to this day. And now my boys tease me because I still choose vanilla frequently over other fun flavors. Oh I’ve ventured out and tried other flavors periodically, but vanilla is still the safest choice.
In a world of choices, movies, music, vehicles, and cities, we are remarkably driven to stay consistent in our choices, we often choose what we know. “Vanilla” may seem boring, but it IS a sure thing. And choices lose their place as “options” when they become our go-to, or our automatic.
In my blog titled Slime, I show how it becomes an automatic response when shame is used as a motivator that starts early in our childhoods. Strange as this sounds, shame is one of our “vanilla” automatics that we’ve practiced, seemingly to help us live pain-free. But shame is very painful, so it seems counterintuitive to rely on shame. But consider this idiom, “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t”. Basically, if you were raised with shame as a motivator, you know what to expect, so to choose NOT to shame yourself is like choosing an “new flavor”.
Recognizing when we actually have choice, more than just “vanilla”, gives us much more freedom. The 5th C, Choice, can only surface when we exercise the first 4 Cs, #1 Catch the shame or self-judgment, #2 Have Compassion for your humanity, #3 Be Curious about the origin of your shame/condemning response, and #4 Challenge the belief system that keeps your shame going. The 5th C rises on its own once these first 4 C’s are exercised. We have choice! Which means we can actually still choose “vanilla” shame OR we can venture out to try a “new flavor” of response, like loving ourselves with “do-overs”.
In the ice cream shop that day, if I’d realized that I could have sampled other flavors, I might have tried something new and expanded my palate. But fear of doing something “wrong” kept me stuck in one flavor. And so it is with life, fear keeps us stuck, but trying something new, while scary, expands our “palate”.
We have choice!
I truly hope you find freedom of choice through the 5 Cs!