The truth about shame
After writing the challenging 7-part post called When the Need to Forgive Has Been Hidden, I veered down some new roads—to The Fruit of The Spirit, The Prayer, The Armor of God and more. Eventually, I realized that I’d shifted into a new series, Christian Living.
Peaceful Readers, it’s time to return to the Forgiving series to take care of some unfinished business. Today on Choosing Peace, you’ll read about a Christmas stocking, a park and a box.
Questions and answers
In this post, I answered one of the questions I posed at the beginning of the Forgiving series: What’s the relationship between forgiving and The Fruit of The Spirit? It’s well worth exploring. I’ll give you a hint. The words love and self-control are the keys.
What other questions do we need to answer from that first Forgiving post, affectionately called Do I Have To? Yes, even the name of the first post made it clear that forgiving can be tough. It really can.
Question 1
What’s the relationship between forgiving and The Five Love Languages?
Hmmm. That’s a good question. Now—three-plus years after I asked that question—it’s time to answer it.
The five love languages
Counselor and author Gary Chapman taught many of us about The Five Love Languages: Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch. If you aren’t sure what your primary love language is, take this free online quiz. It’s quick and important. Your love language reveals what actions make you feel loved. Your love language also reveals the area where you experience the most pain when you encounter attacks, harshness or withholding of your love language. (For more about a love languages book, see this Resources page and scroll to Non-Fiction: Right Thinking and Living.)
A Christmas attack
Initially, I described this next story as an example of withholding love. But as I thought about it, I realized that this story is actually about an attack—on Christmas morning. The attack was pre-meditated, justified, planned, executed and admitted to others. Have a seat, Peaceful Readers. This one is sad.
When Logan was little, I played bunco each month with my sister Pam’s church friends. (Yes—Pam, The Almighty.) Several of the bunco moms sent their children to a private Christian school, and they all spoke really highly about it. I’ll call one of them Veronica. She was unusual.
One night at bunco, Veronica told us why her daughter Riley wouldn’t be returning to the school that fall. Since Riley misbehaved routinely, Veronica put coal in her daughter’s Christmas stocking and told Riley that she was a bad girl. At school on Valentine’s Day, they were talking about love. Riley said her mom didn’t love her—and she told her second-grade class about the coal her mom put in her Christmas stocking. The school was rightly concerned about Veronica’s behavior and the impact on Riley. Veronica was asked to go to counseling. She didn’t go. So that was Riley’s last year at the school. Veronica’s emotional abuse wasn’t ignored or condoned. She was asked to get professional help and she refused.
Guess what, Peaceful Readers? We chose that Christian school for Logan—due to Veronica’s story and several others.
Your parents
Did your parents speak your love language—or any love language, for that matter? Here’s a reminder of The Five Love Languages: Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch. My love language is Words of Affirmation. Neither of my parents spoke it. My mom spoke one love language: Acts of Service. My dad, the self-absorbed narcissist and monologist, spoke none. Did I feel loved by my parents? Obviously not. For more about my story, read this post, which includes two fascinating dreams—one about my mom and one about my dad.
So, what’s the relationship between forgiving and The Five Love Languages?
The answer
When we’re holding on to unforgiveness, we’re living in the past. To some extent, we miss out on the fullness of the love available to us in the present. It goes like this. Meaningful people speak my love language to me, but I don’t receive their love fully because my back is turned to them. Emotionally-speaking, I’m facing the past, not the present. Needless to say, that’s a big deal.
Has there been a time in your life when your love didn’t seem to get through to someone? Was that person stuck in unforgiveness? Unresolved trauma? Mental illness?
The unholy tie
Are you stuck in unforgiveness? Dig into Point #15 of What Forgiving Is and Isn’t. What’s Point #15?
Forgiving is the breaking of an unholy tie or bond.
That revelation was a show-stopper for me. Here’s a small taste.
When someone or perhaps some people have wronged me and I haven’t forgiven them, something powerful and destructive connects me to them and to what they did. It isn’t only the memory of who they are, what they did and how I felt. My thoughts are tied to them. My feelings are tied to them. My heart is tied to them—at least in part. And a corrosive cancer has begun to grow in me. The chain is around my neck.
Read about the chain, the tunnel and much more in What Forgiving Is and Isn’t, part 9. If you’re having difficulty forgiving someone, check out this post about the parable of the unforgiving servant. It’s vital for us to see ourselves rightly.
Finding the answer to the next question was tricky. I wrote and I prayed. I prayed and I wrote.
Question 2
What’s the relationship between shame and unforgiveness?
I’ve written about shame and the inability to forgive myself. See the section called Healing Together in this important post, Forgiving Yourself.
What about the relationship between shame and unforgiveness of others? That’s a different scenario. Before we answer that question, let’s answer a more fundamental question. What’s the difference between guilt and shame? Are they pals, like peanut butter and jelly? No. They’re very different concepts—one from God and one from Satan. I’m serious.
Guilt vs. shame
How guilt helps us
Guilt comes from God (as a result of our sin). Guilt is about the truth of what we did. We feel guilty because we are guilty. Most of us have said about ourselves, “Guilty as charged.” Other times, we don’t want to admit our own guilt. We make excuses. We minimize. We quote The Lies of The Age. We pretend we didn’t do it. Etcetera.
Guilt—while uncomfortable—leads to repentance,
which reconciles us to God. And that’s a very good thing.
What is repentance? It’s more than regret. Repentance is humble sorrow before God for what we’ve done wrong, with a sincere desire to stop doing it. The Bible tells us this truth: God’s kindness leads us to repentance. When God confronts us with the truth of our sin—our obvious guilt—is he being kind to us? (This is not a trick question.) Absolutely. Our greatest need is to be reconciled to God, whether we’re coming to him for the first time or we’ve known him for decades. For a funny story about gently confronting Logan with his guilt when he was young, see the beginning of this post. All it took was a look in the mirror.
Guilt is about the truth of what we did. And God gives us a solution—the salvation and forgiveness given to us by Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord—and a close, right relationship with God, our Father.
How shame hurts us
Shame comes from Satan. Shame is all about lies. For example: “You’re bad.” “You’re unworthy.” “God couldn’t love you.” Shame is about our identity—lies about who we are. The only solution for shame—which is based on Satan’s lies—is to reject the lies and believe God’s truth, which goes something like this. “Yes, you have sinned. Jesus came to save you from your sins—the enslavement of sin itself and the consequences for sin.” Read about why Jesus died and was raised from the dead in part 4 of The Beauty of the Bible. See this post about Jesus calling to me with one word. For my salvation story, go here.
More about shame
Okay. Now that we’re clear about what shame is, let’s go exploring for the answer to this question:
What is the relationship between shame and unforgiveness of others?
Since shame is based on Satan’s lies about who I am—bad, worthless, stupid, ugly, a failure, unlovable, etc.—how do those lies impact my likelihood or motivation to forgive others? Let’s start digging.
Hiding
When I’m locked in shame, I hide to some extent from good people, from God, from the truth.
Emotional hiding can manifest itself in distractions, busy-ness, under-achieving or over-achieving, people-pleasing, addictions, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, difficult relationships and more. If I’m carrying shame and secrets, I don’t feel safe revealing “the real me” to good people. Also, shame tells me to replace my intrinsic, God-given value with the lie of performance-based value, which leads to pride, anger or self-hatred—further separating me from other people, God and the truth.
Shame leads to emotional hiding—
living in denial, pride, anger, self-destruction and/or fear.
Hiding from good people is not our natural state of being. It requires effort. More than we realize. Are you hiding? If so, when did you begin hiding? Is there something in your life that you’re trying to forget—to not think about? Get out your journal and reflect on your answers to those questions. (To learn how to lay down a loss or trauma, start reading here.)
Unhealthy boundaries
Lies are a key component in unhealthy boundaries. Since shame comes from Satan’s lies about the core of who I am, shame can fuel unhealthy boundaries powerfully, like a bonfire.
If I’m living in A State of Shame, I believe Satan’s lies about who I am—“bad, worthless, stupid, ugly, a failure, unlovable….” Shame makes me much more likely to allow other people to treat me poorly because, on some level, I believe that I deserve punishment. And that punishment can come from others or from me, myself and I. (Please pardon the strange grammar in that expression—one of my personal favorites.)
Destruction vs. flourishing
Because lies are destructive, shame is destructive. Remember this: Satan—the thief and the father of lies—came to steal, kill and destroy.
Jesus came to give us spiritual flourishing—right thinking, right living.
And right living includes walking hand-in-hand with Christ, our Savior.
See this short, beautiful film, “Jesus, The Soul Shepherd.”
Life after shame
After I attended a post-abortion healing retreat seven years ago, I was deeply changed. I laid down my shame and finally forgave myself. I laid down the heavy burdens I carried for 26 years. Did that affect my other relationships? Oh, yes. Profoundly. I came out of hiding. Since I wasn’t carrying the dead weight of shame and unforgiveness anymore, I became stronger. I could finally be courageous and say no to destructive patterns and behaviors—mine and other people’s. The changes came swiftly, though not easily. The core issues were all about truth and boundaries.
I finally knew the truth—and could live the truth.
The truth that my sin doesn’t define who I am.
The truth that God loves me. The truth that I matter.
The aftermath
The month after that life-changing retreat, Brandon yelled at me at length—his modus operandi. Soon afterwards, I left confrontive letters to him before leaving for work, and then I “went off” on him that evening in my big red truck in our driveway. The basic message was: “I’ve totally had it with your yelling, buster.”
I finally stood up for myself. Brandon was shocked. (So was I.) He agreed to go to counseling for the first time in our marriage. During counseling, we learned the truth about Brandon’s abusive parents—the sociopaths. We learned about setting firm, appropriate boundaries with them. Big changes were taking place.
The separation
Two months later, around 6 A.M. one Saturday morning, Brandon launched his typical Monthly Yell-fest at Frankie Ann, The Worst Wife in Town. My offense? I spent $36 on special-buy organic sodas at Aldi for Logan for the summer. During Brandon’s “you’re so irresponsible” tirade, I left. Brandon had taken my keys, so I walked out the door with my phone and the clothes on my back. I sat at a nearby park—feeling a strange mix of vulnerability and resolve. I knew I did the right thing. I would not continue to live with Brandon’s verbal abuse. I would not keep living that way. It was not okay—for anyone.
Laying down my shame gave me the strength
to draw the hard lines that needed to be drawn. Finally.
I texted my pal Charlene at 8 A.M. and she came and picked me up at the park. Read this post about our 12-day separation while I was at Camp Charlene. I prayed a lot, God did miracles, and great changes took place. Thanks be to God! Forgiving was an important piece of the healing.
Laying down the trauma
Chronic, long-term abuse was stopped. But my shame had to be laid down first. And my fear of payback. And eventually, my anger.
One of the most important things I learned at that post-abortion healing retreat was the life-changing value of writing an anger letter. I found it to be the number one tool to lay down trauma—regardless of how long ago the trauma took place. (Read this post about therapeutic letters.)
Did I write an anger letter to Brandon? Yes, indeed. That was absolutely necessary, but I didn’t show it to him. It was for me. For my healing. Shortly after I wrote it, I destroyed it. While writing an anger letter to Brandon was essential, I knew it couldn’t be read by anyone else. That would be destructive. Interestingly enough, out of the many anger letters that I wrote, I destroyed only two of them—the one to Brandon and the one to Pam, The Almighty—my younger sibling, the malignant narcissist.
Love languages and trauma
Because my love language is Words of Affirmation, Brandon’s verbal abuse cut me to the core. And it began the month we got married. His verbal abuse was much more damaging to me than my first husband’s infidelity, alcoholism, pornography addiction and emotional abuse—combined. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not minimizing the severity of those experiences. They were extremely traumatic. But Brandon’s verbal abuse was much worse for me. Remember: “Your love language also reveals the area where you experience the most pain when you encounter attacks, harshness or withholding of your love language.”
Think back to Veronica and her daughter Riley—the little girl who received coal in her Christmas stocking and was told she was bad. Merry Christmas to you, little Riley, from your jacked-up mom. No matter how you slice it, that was a terrible, memorable Christmas for Riley. If her love language was Receiving Gifts, she received a punch in the face. If her love language was Words of Affirmation, Riley received a kick in the gut. Instead of Acts of Service to make Christmas warm and loving, Veronica plotted to make it about payback. Quality Time or the sincere hugs and kisses of Physical Touch? Not happening on the set of Veronica’s Punishing House Christmas.
Riley is in her mid-20s now. Will you pray for her?
The healing season
Back to The Smythe House Marriage—I mean Brandon and me. In some ways, the healing of our marriage was quick. I drew the new line. That was quick. But it took a good while for my heart to heal from 17 years of routine, out-of-the-blue attacks—from the trauma of Brandon’s verbal abuse. It took time. And—no lie—he had some relapses. But the line didn’t move. “This is not okay. Stop it.”
I feel so much better now. But more importantly, I am so much better. Stronger. Wiser. Healthier.
Let’s do a recap—plus a little more.
Shame’s impact
Shame results in emotional hiding—living in denial, pride, anger, self-destruction and/or fear. Please know this. A spirit of fear is not from God. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” ~ 1 Timothy 1:7, KJV. Shame, which is all about lies, keeps us from thinking rightly.
Shame can also fuel extremely destructive boundaries—where no one gets in or no one gets out. Say what?
Shame can feel like a box.
Stuck
In my case, I couldn’t get out of the box of chronic verbal abuse in my marriage. I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t even see a way out, other than praying for God to somehow release me. But God did not give me permission to leave my marriage. (He did give me permission to leave my first marriage. See this post and the whole story. It’s pretty amazing.)
At times, I felt despair. Sometimes, I prayed for drastic change. While deep peace in our marriage seemed impossible, I knew I had to stay—not only for Logan’s sake.
Bottom line: I knew God was bigger than our mess
and that he desired our healing—individually and together.
What I wanted
And, in reality, I wanted the same things. Healing. Peace. Joy. Laughter. Gratitude. (Love was already there. It was just extremely difficult.)
The healing journey
After God healed me from the shame and pain of my abortion—and showed me how to forgive myself—I marched down the path of healing, one relationship at a time. God helped me peel my Trauma Onion. While I was doing the work of grieving each trauma, Brandon knew what I was doing. We talked about it. I asked and answered hard questions. I wrote anger letters. I journaled. I prayed. And Brandon saw the results. God gave us both remarkable, revealing dreams, and Brandon did some healing too. He has quite a bit more to go, but he’s definitely better.
I took The Healing Journey, and God took me all the way to the destination—complete healing from unresolved loss and trauma.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised….
Psalm 145:3a, King James Version
The Healing Journey took time—three years. But it started big. Right after I laid down my shame, I tore down The Shame Box. I came out of hiding and I drew a new line. The line said, “I matter. And because I matter, I’m not available for abuse anymore. Be good to me.”
Be good to me.
Coming next: Well, Peaceful Readers, this post was a real surprise. If any part of it spoke to you, I think the song below will really bless you. Next time, I’ll answer today’s big question: What is the relationship between shame and unforgiveness of others? You’ll also read about equilibrium, The Scarlet Letter and much more.
Thanks for reading and for Choosing Peace.
Truth from The Word: Romans 5:1-11
Song: “Whatever You’re Doing (Something Heavenly)” by Sanctus Real