Shame

Did you know there is a healthy type of shame?  We are so used to talking about the toxic kind that we often forget it has a more helpful counterpart.  Shame is a spiritual crisis because it interacts with identity, but not all shame interacts with it in the same way.  Today Cinthia explores the many facets of shame and discusses some strategies that do and do not work for combating the ravages of unhealthy shame. 

Healthy shame is simply an indicator, somewhat like a warning light. It is the concept of needing to maintain appropriate covering, which gives privacy and dignity (as opposed to the fear-based secrecy dictated by unhealthy shame).  Healthy shame tells us we are near a boundary and warns us not to cross it, or to fix what we have broken and seek forgiveness for wrong done.  Healthy shame tells us that some choices do not align with what we were meant to be and that these attitudes and actions do not make us the best versions of ourselves, the versions intended by our Creator when He designed each of us.  Healthy shame helps us to honor one another.  It is what keeps us from going to work naked or engaging in socially-inappropriate hygiene-related practices in the middle of a business meeting.  Having this ability to feel appropriate shame is actually a good thing.  It means our consciences are functioning and that we can use them to help us interact with others in ways that are not dangerous or dishonoring.  Healthy shame helps us to adjust to one another in a positive way, to not use our rights as an excuse to do whatever we want so that we harm and needlessly offend one another.  It tells us which choices undermine our own dignity and the dignity of others.

Unhealthy shame, however, shapes our sense of who we are.  Instead of telling us that some choices are at odds with the identities we were given by God, unhealthy shame becomes the identity.  It drives us to work harder and harder to attain value or tempts us to give up hope of ever achieving worth.  While morality says, “I did a bad thing,” shame says, “I am a bad person.”  Some people are “shame-based,” or so full of unhealthy shame that it determines their perception of reality and almost constantly influences their decisions and relationships; this usually results from some kind of emotional and/or physical abandonment (including self-abandonment).  Adam and Eve experienced this as soon as they betrayed themselves by believing Satan’s lies and crossing the boundary God had set for them; they immediately felt exposed, hid, and tried to cover themselves as best they knew how.  Shame separated them (as it does us) from God, from themselves, and from each other (Genesis 2-3).  When we believe the messages of unhealthy shame, shame, like a magnet, starts to pull in proofs of its own appropriateness -- reasons we must deserve shame.  Under shame, we tend to cling to other things to make ourselves feel better.  Shame isolates us and steals our sense of meaning and purpose.  It causes us to be obsessed with our own goodness or badness.  It keeps us in bondage, especially the bondage of fear.  Shame exacerbates… well, everything. 

As adults, we do not have to believe all the messages shame gives us.  We can learn to distinguish between the indicator that is healthy shame and the defining taskmaster that is unhealthy shame.  Adults are responsible for parenting their own inner children and using self-talk that does not self-shame.  We can choose to trust what we know to be true.  Proverbs 14:12 indicates that a way can seem right to us but actually lead to death.  Inappropriate shame is like this.  We must recognize it and refuse to agree with it.  We must be willing to respond to shame but not believe everything it says. 

We must also recognize the dangers of ineffective anecdotes to shame.  One of these is shamelessness, which is actually the flip side of shame and, as such, is also a spiritual crisis.  Shamelessness is an understandable but ineffective reaction to the shame and guilt we feel about our fallen condition.  On the surface, it seems to counter legalism and protect us from the pain of self-recrimination.  Ultimately, however, shame fails to combat our fears or calm our sympathetic nervous systems, which are activated when we are disturbed by shame.  Shamelessness counterfeits freedom by trying to destroy the standard, but in truth it integrates shame into our lives at a deeper level.  Because human beings do have a sense of right and wrong, we cannot ultimately ignore the standards we associate with our feelings of shame.  Searing our consciences can give us a short-term sense of liberation, but in the long-run it tends to exacerbate our fears and make our personalities even more shame-based.  In this condition, we experience another form of bondage and create shame in others by exposing them to shameful behavior.  Because we do not truly respect ourselves, we try to self-comfort with pride and a sense of entitlement.  Then, says Cinthia, “[w]hen pride is paradoxically paired with a low sense of self-worth, it becomes vain, it becomes proud and self-serving.  The opposite is seen in Christ’s life.”  He was appropriately proud of Who He was, and His sense of identity could not be shaken, even by the humiliation to which He was subjected.  Because of this, He is now able to offer us release from all condemnation (Romans 4:7; 8:1).  He took our shame without losing His own knowledge of Who He really was (and is), making it possible for us to experience actual freedom from shame without becoming shameless.

Have you integrated shame so that you think you are always bad or seared your conscience to think you are always good?  Are you integrating shame or coming against it?  What is it telling you?  On what is your identity based?  Take your shame to God.  Talk to Him about it.  Ask Him for help.  Our Judge is our Savior, and the One Who both created us in love and then took our shame on Himself is the One Who defines us.