Equilibrium
Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and had absolutely no recollection of that time in your life, that place, those people? You look at the picture and cock your head to the side, wondering Where was I, who were those people, what was going on then? And then you wonder how you felt at the time, how you were really doing, what that chapter wove into your tapestry.
Today on Choosing Peace you’ll read about a letter, a girl named Brittany, and a scale.
Last time, we dug into love languages, shame and some interesting personal stories. We explored two of the primary fall-outs of shame—hiding and unhealthy boundaries. I asked this question: “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?” We’ll answer that question today.
Silent pain
Shame hurts. There’s a silent pain involved that we don’t really acknowledge. We believe the lies: “This is just my life.” “I don’t deserve The Good Life.” Etcetera.
Unforgiveness has its own silent pain too. Let’s do a rewind and repeat from What Forgiving Is and Isn’t, part 9:
The power of pain
Unforgiveness ties us powerfully to something hurtful from the past. When we’re tied to sin, tied to pain, tied to anger, tied to the past, we’re facing the wrong way. We’re facing all the wrong things.
While we’re holding on to unforgiveness,
we’re walking toward the pain
instead of walking away from it.
Later in that post:
The unholy tie or bond
What makes this haunting—The Chain of Unforgiveness—an unholy tie or bond? We’re tied to sin, which is always unholy. And we’ve unknowingly accepted that we can’t shake it, which is a lie. We don’t even see our desperate need to get rid of the chain. We keep replaying the scene in our minds. The sin has taken residence deep inside us. That’s why I called it a cancer. It is destructive and it is serious.
We can be tied to someone else’s sin against us or we can be tied to our own sin.
These unholy ties put us in Punishing Mode. We fantasize about punishing The Guilty Party, we unintentionally punish the people around us and/or we punish ourselves. We give what we’re tied to, so we give pain. Yes, indeed. Hurt people hurt people.
For much more, including unforgiveness vs. fear, thought patterns, and forgiving in a vulnerable situation, read the whole post.
The scarlet letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece The Scarlet Letter paints an unforgettable picture of the fall-out of shame, rejection and isolation. When I read this book several years ago, I used my green highlighter, I wrote definitions of words in the margins, and I made notes on several pieces of notebook paper. As I flipped through the book last week, it fell open to the beginning of chapter 21. I had drawn a star in the margin beside a passage about Hester, the woman who had a child out of wedlock. Hester was forced to wear The Scarlet Letter—the letter A for Adulteress—to announce her sin so she could be shamed and ostracized—permanently punished and forced to live away from everyone in town. Her face was described “like a mask” and “like… a dead woman’s features.” Hawthorne relates that Hester actually was dead as far as receiving any sympathy or warmth from anyone in town was concerned. She had “departed out of the world.”
The author
What made Nathaniel Hawthorne an expert on these subjects? One of his ancestors was a judge at the Salem witch trials. In the long introduction to this novel, Hawthorne wrote about an ancestor who came to this new world “with his Bible and his sword”—described as “a bitter persecutor.” He also wrote about Providence and trusting God with the changes of life. Having spent time with contemporaries Thoreau and Longfellow, life revealed many truths to this gifted author—about God and about people. If you haven’t read The Scarlet Letter, I highly recommend it. For more recommended classics, see this Resources page.
Today’s scarlet letter
Peaceful Readers, I assert to you that we are surrounded today by men and women like Hester Prynne—the woman who wore The Scarlet Letter. Breathing but not living. Present but unseen. Speaking but unheard. Feeling and yearning but not embraced. Filled with shame. Hiding. Alone in a crowd. Racked by regret and fear. Does today’s invisible scarlet letter also begin with the letter A? (See Abortion on this index page.)
Destruction
Both shame and unforgiveness are characterized by silent pain, which leads to destructiveness—toward ourselves and/or others. These are some of the weightier examples: Abuse; addiction; passive-aggressive behavior; angry outbursts and hostility; criminal activity; mental illness; instability; choosing dangerous, pain-filled environments; and/or perpetual chaos. Additional examples include distractions; depression; anxiety; people-pleasing; under- or over-achieving; blame, excuses and complaining; and more.
From shame to sabotage
For a number of years during my 10-year stint as a Child Protective Services caseworker, I worked with therapeutic foster parents who served emotionally disturbed children. *A 13-year-old girl—I’ll call her Brittany—was placed in one of my foster homes. Brittany and her 7-year-old brother had been severely sexually abused, and their parents played an active role in Brittany sexually abusing her little brother.
*Names and some details have been changed to protect identities.
At first, Brittany seemed to do reasonably well in her foster home. She was going to counseling. She was in a safe environment. She was making good grades in school. Then Brittany started sabotaging things. She ran away multiple times and got arrested for shoplifting. Her downward spiral continued, so Brittany was moved to an institution. Then Brittany started cutting herself. What happened?
The pain
Brittany carried extreme emotional pain from what was done to her and what she herself had done—taught to her and forced on her by her parents. The safety of Brittany’s foster home didn’t match her inner turmoil and shame. At all. She felt overwhelmingly deserving of punishment, so she punished herself. Brittany sabotaged her ability to stay in her foster home. And she began cutting herself so her physical pain—her here and now—would match her emotional pain.
Let’s explore the concept of equilibrium—a destructive reality for people living with unresolved trauma.
Equilibrium
Brittany cut herself to achieve equilibrium. Her perpetual inner state was filled with pain, so other aspects of her life needed to match that pain so her life would make sense. “I’m hurting because I just cut myself.” In reality, Brittany cut herself because she was already hurting. She hungered for equilibrium, so she created it.
The trauma scale
Think of equilibrium like an old-fashioned, two-sided scale. On one side, Brittany carried a very heavy weight of trauma and pain from her past—terrible memories. For her life to make sense, she needed to achieve emotional equilibrium. Today’s reality needed to balance out or match that inner pain, as much as possible. So Brittany had to make today painful. Very painful. And she did.
As we do the work of grieving and lay down our traumas and losses, those painful experiences come off our shoulders—off our two-sided Trauma Scale. We feel lighter. We take The Healing Journey. We’re no longer plagued by equilibrium—by our attempts to recreate, relive or unknowingly “manage” our traumas and our pain. We walk away from the struggle—from the ever-wobbling, demanding Trauma Scale. Without even knowing it, we chuck that scale in the trash. We’re no longer slaves to equilibrium. We’re free from the lies and pain of the past.
The inner state
Brittany’s resting state was pain.
What is your resting emotional or mental state? In other words, when you’re cruising through a “normal” day, without anything particularly out-of-the-ordinary going on, how do you feel? What do you think about? Where do your emotions, thoughts and words hover or center?
Here are some possibilities: Love or fear, joy or sadness, peace or anger, patience or agitation, kindness or callousness, goodness or payback, faithfulness or selfishness, gentleness or harshness, self-control or rashness. Each of those dyads begins with a Fruit of The Spirit, followed by a contrary state. There are more. Truth or lying, honor or dishonor, respect or disrespect, forgiveness or unforgiveness, compassion or apathy, gratitude or envy, hope or despair, hospitality or rejection, wisdom or foolishness, courage or weakness, discernment or confusion, contentment or (emotional) pain, faith or distrust.
Acknowledging our true resting state can help reveal
whether we’re still dealing with equilibrium.
If you had to choose one of those words to describe your resting emotional or mental state, what word would you choose? Reflect on your inner, resting state in your journal. Are there virtues you desire to cultivate in your heart, mind and life? Are there vices you desire to fully acknowledge, conquer and replace? Read about shame, repentance and more in part 1 of this post. Pray to God and ask him for the truth and for his guidance.
An example—anger
For people whose natural emotional reality is A State of Anger, they’ll find things to be angry about in the here and now. Obsessing—I mean stewing, keeping score, attacking their spouse or someone else who’s handy. Attacks can be direct, like verbal abuse, or they can be indirect—passive-aggressive. (Self-destructive behavior is also common.) To achieve equilibrium, angry people’s intensity—outburst or perceived payback—needs to approximate the intensity of their pre-existing inner state. For equilibrium to be satisfied, current events must match the inner reality—the inner pain.
The inner fear. The inner rage. The inner darkness.
The receiving end
Have you been on the receiving end of someone else’s hunger for equilibrium? Their acting-out behaviors—whether silent or in-your-face—to balance their inner pain with their perception of the here and now—their skewed, self-induced reality? Not fun. At all. Read the last post about how God helped me to end chronic verbal abuse. I had to lay down my shame first.
The truth about me
And here’s the deeper acknowledgment. The truth isn’t just about people who hurt me. The truth is also about me. After being raised in an emotionally abusive and neglectful environment—a hidden reality until my 50s—why was I drawn to not one, but two husbands who emotionally abused and neglected me? Why?
It’s easy for us to zero in on someone else’s inner, resting state. Sometimes it’s not so fun to look at our own. I just realized something important. For most of my life, my resting state—my inner reality—was A State of Rejection. That explains a lot.
How did my hunger for equilibrium lead to my healing? Let’s do a rewind and repeat from When the Need to Forgive Has Been Hidden, part 1.
The gravitational pull
I gravitated toward sick people because I was sick—emotionally and spiritually. The sick people felt like home. We spoke the same language. We “got” each other. My story in Grieving Divorce paints a vivid picture of the kinds of destruction we can do to each other. It was like two blind and deaf people living in the dark—not seeing or hearing each other. Not knowing what to do to fix the mess. Just spinning our wheels and doing what we’d always done: The Way Life Was.
Eventually, these struggles can help us to admit the obvious. We don’t have all the answers. Trouble can get us down on our knees, calling out to God for help. That is a life-changing moment.
Relationship struggles and emotional distress
can lead us to start or continue The Healing Journey,
which includes both emotional and spiritual healing.
Read that landmark post about adapting and the power of the family. It includes a deep, vital reflection for you and so much more.
Hope
Is there hope for Brittany? For you? For your friend? Absolutely. Jesus is The Great Physician. Dig into The Healing Journey here. If God can heal me, he can heal you—if you’ll do your part. Read the last section of part 1.
What is my resting state now?
The State of Faith. Hallelujah and Praise the Lord!
Brittany is in her 40s. Will you pray for her?
Shame and unforgiveness
Question 1
Okay, Peaceful Readers. It’s time to answer two lingering questions from the last post. First, we’ll answer this one.
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?
One: excuses
Shame hurts. We know that from The Scarlet Letter, from Brittany’s story, and many of us know it from personal experience. When we’re in pain, we tend to focus on ourselves. And we make excuses. Forgiving can be hard—and, to some people—somewhat esoteric. Superfluous. Elusive. Are those just some highfalutin excuses? Absolutely. (And, yes, I had to look up the spelling of that word. Ha!)
I know I got silly, but seriously…
When we’re in pain, we tend to focus on ourselves.
And we make excuses.
Two: the box
Remember Point #10 of What Forgiving Is and Isn’t. Forgiving is a gift that I give to myself most of all. Last time, we learned this reality: “Shame can feel like a box”—and not a gift box. Definitely a bad box. When we’re stuck in the painful box of shame, we’re less likely to do difficult, seemingly-abstract things that are good for us.
Three: the past vs. the future
Here’s the thing. Forgiving cuts our chains to the past, and shame is all about the past. The devil wants to keep us stuck there—in the past with no hope for the future. Shame says, “Because of _______, you are _______; therefore, your life is toast. Done. Over. Worthless.” Shame is all about Satan’s lies about who we are.
God tells us who he is—the God of hope—healing, restoration, transformation.
God tells us the truth. “You are my treasured child. Walk with me.”
Summary
Let’s wrap up this question and answer. Since shame is based on Satan’s lies about who I am… how do those lies impact my likelihood or motivation to forgive others?
1. Shame hurts. When we’re in pain, we tend to focus on ourselves—and we make excuses.
2. When we’re stuck in The Shame Box, we’re less likely to do difficult, abstract things that are good for us.
3. Shame can make us feel hopeless, which leads to discouragement and lack of motivation.
Question 2
The second unanswered question from part 1 goes like this.
What is the relationship between shame and unforgiveness of others?
Us and them
Isn’t that basically the same question we already answered? Somewhat. The first question was about our likelihood and motivation to forgive. That question was about us. The emphasis here is about our attitudes toward other people. It’s mostly about us, but it’s also about them—the heretofore unforgiven. (Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing inspired me to use that big word.)
When we’re plagued by shame and hidden traumas, we feel “less than” other people. Awkward. Different. Separate.
Weighed down
Shame makes us afraid of being truly known—for fear of being rejected. We’re weighed down by our own invisible equilibrium—the Trauma Scale. Because forgiving is a healing thing, it can feel outside or contrary to our trauma-informed reality. Depending on who wronged us and what they did, our anger can hinder forgiving. Remember the Punishing Mode mentioned earlier today. It’s a problem.
Here’s an important truth from earlier in this series: “We can mistakenly believe that forgiving leaves us vulnerable, when forgiving actually gives us clarity.”
Since shame is often accompanied by the inability to forgive ourselves, can that make it more difficult for us to forgive other people? Certainly.
Summary
What is the relationship between shame and unforgiveness of others? We have several potential issues at play here—fear, unacknowledged equilibrium, anger and/or unforgiveness of ourselves. But those possibilities are not the end of the story.
Forgiving people
Can we be Forgiving People even when we’re plagued by shame? Before we’ve laid shame down and replaced the lies with truth? Most definitely.
God gives us the strength, the peace, the wisdom to forgive.
He can and he does.
See all 12 parts of What Forgiving Is and Isn’t. Pray and ask God to help you.
Coming next: I’m not sure what’s coming next. Will I start digging into the four barriers or roadblocks to forgiving? Pride, fear, anger and denial? I’m not sure. The Holy Spirit will show me where to travel next.
Thanks for reading and for Choosing Peace.
Truth from The Word: 2 Corinthians 3:18
Song: “Changing Me” by Anna Golden