We’ve all heard it before. The quiet voice inside our own minds that whispers (though it might as well be shouting) insidious messages, such as...
“You’re a burden to your family.”
“You’re not a skilled worker.”
“You have nothing to offer the world.”
“You shouldn’t still be struggling with this sin.”
“You’re too much.”
“You’re not enough.”
In his book, The Soul of Shame, Curt Thompson addresses this voice and gives it a name. In order to understand shame and the detrimental effect it can have on our lives and in our hearts, Thompson first explores the mind’s inner workings and defines our purpose here on earth, as God intended when He created us. Through the lens of the Gospel, Thompson helps his reader identify shame’s harmful voice and guides us through methods by which to silence it.
The following are some of my takeaways from the book, which I highly recommend if you desire to silence the shame in your own life.
We live our lives by the medium of storytelling. Shame wants our stories to have unhappy beginnings, middles, and endings. It exists to dysregulate our sense of meaning.
We use story, or narrative, to draw connections between events, people, and ideas we encounter. This helps us to assign meaning to our lives. When shame is allowed to set up camp in our minds, our life’s stories are disrupted and making meaning of life is much trickier. Which story do you believe you are living in? This may be one of the most important questions we ask ourselves. Do you believe God is good, or that He isn’t? Do you believe that your life is intended for a higher purpose, or that it isn’t? Shame would have us forget what we believe about God and, therefore, about ourselves.
Shame is shape-shifting, persistent, and cunning, and it never discriminates. Shame’s deepest desire is to disrupt relationships and create a sense of absolute isolation.
The nature of shame is such that it affects everyone. It may have a different underlying message for each individual, depending on each of our desires, fears, and insecurities. It is deeply associated with each person’s own sense of self, and has little to do with our perceptions of others. Shame can easily lurk in the shadows, waiting to pervade even the most joyful of circumstances. One of shame’s greatest weapons is the illusion it creates of being a never-ending sensation; we convince ourselves that we will never not feel ashamed again.
Vulnerability is the only way to defeat shame.
As Brene Brown has helped us understand in her research and writings, vulnerability is shame’s greatest enemy. Shame cannot continue to fester and grow when its tactics are being continually exposed in the context of a loving community. We must be allowed to bring our shame to light in group settings without feeling as if those who love us will be repulsed by it and choose to leave us. Vulnerability is a risk worth taking, because it has the power to defeat shame when used properly.
We can’t expect to know God fully if we aren’t willing to fully know all parts of ourselves, including those parts that shame would rather we leave covered up.
Our natural inclination, when we feel shame, is to run and hide. Adam and Eve, after understanding that they had sinned in the Garden, were finally able to understand their nakedness and attempted to cover themselves up. However, God’s intent was always for us to live in communion together, and co-create a life of goodness and beauty. Adam and Eve were meant to walk with God through the Garden forever, but sin interrupted, and shame separated them. God never wanted shame to be an obstacle to knowing Him. Understanding how shame disrupts our learning, our vocations, and our families is helpful in removing it from those areas of our lives.
Turning toward God’s delight over us inspires creativity, draws us nearer to one another, and banishes shame.
When the areas of the mind are fully integrated, we have a greater ability to use our creativity to participate in God’s story. We can co-create with Him and use our imaginations to write stories that are interwoven with the goodness and beauty He always intended for us. This is only possible living within our “cloud of witnesses,” or the vulnerability of being in a confessional community. God’s delight in us commands more of our attention than the voice of shame would want us to hear.