Lois Hollis : Beyond Shame

Where are you in life with the big emotional bricks like shame and guilt? Do you reflect on past events or experience these feelings in current relationships? For most of us, this stuff is part of our makeup; we are unaware of it.

Having listened to my guest on the show today, I became conscious of my shame and guilt for past actions and how I have used shame in my family interactions.  

We were all taught to do this. In my education, shame was a teaching tool. I remember being sat at the Black table as if it was the wrong place to be and ridiculed in front of the class for poor English or grammar. I am of the age where parents would scold and guilt trip to get compliance.

Until the late 1990s, it was common in most settings to use shame and fear to modify people’s behaviour. That said, we still see shaming in the press and on social media. 

Shame and Guilt are embedded in society

Generations of people have suffered trauma through educational, religious or family situations. Thankfully society has moved on a little, and we have far to travel. Today’s guest on the show is doing her bit to put the world right. 

Lois Hollis is in her late 70s, deeply connected to God and her faith, and driven by a calling that started in childhood. Her early years were tough. With physical abuse at home, she received multiple head and neck injuries. One of these occasions led to a near-death experience where she received her calling.  At church, she was preached into guilt and shame to find her sins; the teachers at school punished her for dyslexia.

Her solace was tap dancing, she loved to tap dance, and she tells me it was tap dancing that pulled her through. There is some evidence that hand-eye and foot coordination can improve dyslexia.  It worked as she finished high school, applied to the nursing school at the University of Pennsylvania, and received a scholarship.

“ I just keep going, keep moving until I get where I need to be”

At college, Lois earned an RN and BSN nursing degree and went on to a job at the Jefferson hospital Philadelphia. Her creative approach to problems was recognised, and She got invited to join a programme that went on to develop the first Kidney Hemodialysis Units in the USA in 1966.

Lois Hollis was and still is a pioneer.

She became a pioneer of the kidney dialysis foundation and stayed in the programme for ten years, leaving it behind to have a family, and blessed with three daughters. 

Her life took a turn, now in her 40s, she experienced headaches that became migraine that developed into a range of other life-threatening problems. It reached a point where she was told she would not live beyond her 50s.  

Those childhood traumas and physical abuse had a price it was discovered there were broken bones in her neck and back. Our conversation is one of physical, mental, and spiritual recovery and a wonderfully inspiring journey.

Today Lois Hollis works with shame and guilt as an independent study. She is bringing new knowledge of these misunderstood conditions. She is a filmmaker, author of 3 books, a speaker and a coach.

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