How To Overcome The Shame You Feel

A few weeks ago I picked up a book called Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown, an expert in the social science associated with the topic of shame. She is from Texas and uses some colorful language in her book, yet her insights shed light on the issue of shame.

 What she says, from the perspective of a social scientist, is that shame is part of the baggage we all carry and understanding the role shame plays in our lives explains much of our behavior.

Shameful feelings are pervasive in our lives and we strive to rid ourselves of them. She proposes that shame is at the core of our lives and identity. And our tendency is to deal with our shame in one of two ways: as a victim or as a Viking. 

The victim looks at his or her shame and thinks, “I’m a loser; I can never get a break; I’m always taken advantage of; I can’t hold my own.” These people go through life embracing their shame and simply roll over and give up. They abandon their dreams, they have no hope. Shame reminds them that they will never amount to anything and their feelings of inadequacy reinforce that lie. 

The Viking wants to win and conquer. This person is in control, will dominate, and exert power over any and all situations. The thinking is, “If I can just get one more win, one more sale, one more salary increase, one more trophy, shame will go away.”

This dichotomy presents a big challenge when you bring God into the equation. For a Viking, who tries to bury shame in accomplishment, it is difficult to acknowledge that God loves you and His grace will heal your shame; that is a foreign concept. They ask, “What do I need to do, so that God will love me?” Shame drives them to believe that they need God’s approval before He will accept them. 

The person with a victim mindset will think, “There is no way God could love someone like me. I don’t deserve His grace; I’m a loser.” Either of these approaches leaves one with shame intact and life simply goes on as it always has.

What then is the answer to allow authentic grace to overcome shame?

Brene Brown suggests that vulnerability is the way to release our shame. In other words, vulnerability is the path to grace. 

We find this principle in the New Testament of the Bible when the Apostle Peter says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). Grace is available to people who are willing to be vulnerable. But don’t confuse vulnerability with weakness.  Vulnerability requires great courage. You must be honest with your feelings, taking risks when sharing shameful things with the people you love and accept real truth about yourself.

Vulnerability is taking the risk to be seen as you are, not how you want to be perceived. When I take that risk and get honest with myself, with God, and people around me, I encounter grace. It is in honesty with the people I trust, who are safe and who love me, where the healing of my shame takes place and grace touches my soul. 

When you choose to be vulnerable, you move from being driven by your shame to being drawn by God’s grace.

That has made a huge difference in my life!

God Is Looking For A Relationship Not A Performance.

Some religious systems portray God as impersonal, without feelings. In these systems we end up with beliefs to be mastered, codes to be followed and rituals to be engaged in. At the end of the day every good deed is added to the plus side of the score sheet and every misstep is deducted.

These systems focus on performance. What they lack is actually what God brings through grace; the realization of his genuine, passionate affection for each of us. He invites us to open our hearts to his love and return that love to Him with sincerity.

In other words, God is not looking for a performance, but a relationship.

You and I are conditioned to look at life in terms of performance. We expect our kids to behave, our dogs to be obedient and do tricks we teach them on demand. We want our employees to complete assignments accurately and on time. We withhold or bestow privileges, raises, incentives and approval based on how others perform. In some cases this is appropriate. The problem arises when we equate faith to performance.  Some people believe pleasing God and receiving eternal life is performance-based when it is based on the idea of relationship. We please God by being in relationship with him.

When my daughter was in pre-school and kindergarten, her school had an annual open house and Christmas concert. About 25 kids would file up to the front of the classroom. Every parent, including me, would stake out a prime vantage point to capture a “Kodak moment.”

The costumed students would climb onto the risers, boys in back and girls in the front. Then the teacher would play on a piano that hadn’t been tuned for a few years, and plucking away at “Joy to the World,” articulating the words so the kids would follow along.

As the kids started singing, and during the song, a few things would happen. One of the boys would start pushing another boy. A couple kids would start waving to their parents.  Eventually, the halo would fall off one of the children and she would step off the risers to retrieve it. Then there was always one child who had to go to the bathroom halfway through. A few minutes into the concert came the inevitable descent into chaos.

Do you know what would happen at the end of the last song? All the parents would rise to their feet, cheering on their kids in a full on standing ovation. Mardel and I would stand up and cheer and whistle and say Ambers name as if she was the star. Not because of her performance, but because it was our little girl up there. We applauded her not based on her performance, but based on our relationship with her.

What pleases God? A relationship with you. With God it’s not about performance. Its not about trying to do everything right so that He’ll love you. It’s about the fact that he already loves you and wants to make things right with you.  Psalm 51 (v.16) says it well: “Going through the motions doesn’t please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you … Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.” (The Message).

Getting Back Up

Many of us in life have felt the sting of these words. “It’s Over!” You might have heard them from your spouse, when they said they didn’t love you anymore and left you. Some have heard it when they tried out for the team, and they didn’t make the cut. Others have heard it when the bank began the foreclosure process on your home, and still others when your company downsized or your client took their business elsewhere.

How do you recover from those painful moments? What do we do when we hit bottom?

The first step begins by admitting that I am not God.

Ben Stein who is known for his dry sense of humor but also known as a speechwriter, host of the Quiz show and a columnist wrote a book some time ago called, “How to ruin your life”.

In his book he writes about the third principle towards ruining your life by saying. “Convince yourself that you’re the center of the universe”.

“Face it: you’re the only one who matters in any given situation. The truth is – and let me be the first one to tell you – God went away on vacation and left you in charge!

The root cause of that kind of thinking is our desire to control things.  The more chaotic life becomes, the more you want to control it.  You want to control your life, you want to control other people’s life, control your environment—You want to be God.  You want to be at the center of your universe.  When we try to control everything it ends up in fatigue, frustration, and failure.

Eventually we discover that we can’t control everything in life and we’re willing to admit that we are not God. Which brings us to the second step in getting back up and that is realizing that God can be trusted.
Most people don’t have a problem with God.  George Gallup did a survey some time ago that said 96% of the people in America say, “I believe in God”; less than 2% of the people say, “I’m an atheist.”

The real issue for most is not, “Do I believe in God” That’s a given for many Americans.  The real question is, “What do I believe about God? For many people, their view of God has been skewed so that they are not even sure he can be trusted.

Some see God as a parent. Tragic.  Because if your father was aloof and unloving then you tend to think of God as aloof and unloving. Never quite sure if you measured up. If your parent was somebody to be feared, then you tend to think, “I need to be afraid of God.”  If your father was abusive, then you tend to think God as abusive and demanding.  If your parent was uncaring, then your perceive God as uncaring.  Instead of God making you in His image, you make God in your image. The result is we create a God that cannot be trusted because he looks too much like the people who broke my trust.

But that is not an accurate picture of who God is. Many people in our culture, still think that God is mad at them, for something they did years ago, and they think that when they come into the great board room, they are going to hear, “It’s Over”.

Here is accurate picture of God who can be trusted. It comes from the Old Testament and God is speaking in the first and simply says “I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.”

With that kind of affirmation, you can relax in God’s care even though everything around you feels chaotic. Your dreams and your hopes are not over, they might just be starting over!

Where Is God In The Crisis?

“Don’t waste a crisis.”  This phrase surfaced several years ago during the economic downturn. It means learn from the things that go wrong in your life.
If there is one thing we can learn in any critical situation, it is how vulnerable we are. A crisis reveals those things we count on for our security and such a revelation can leave us full of fear.

The pre-flight talk we hear on all journeys by air is a good way to illustrate what I mean. Have you ever noticed how few people really pay attention to this important safety information? No one seems to think they need it. Those of us who fly frequently become immune to it, thinking I’ve heard it all before, why should I listen again? Or nothing ever really happens, so why would I need to know this stuff?

Some years ago I was on a flight returning from Korea. On this particular flight, we went through some thunderstorms that left us feeling as though the plane was going to fall apart in mid-air. Earlier in the flight, the person next to me found out I was a pastor which shortened our conversation significantly. Later, when the storm got intense and the plane was just shaking and all of our faces were ashen white, the person next to me was suddenly interested in conversing with me. People in trouble have a perception that, as a pastor, I must have an inside track with the big man upstairs. So when the plane felt like it was about to come apart, my seatmate, who was previously uninterested in what I had to say, was silently pleading with me to get up and do something pastoral. So, I stood up and took an offering.

Just a little pastor humor there. Here’s what really happened: in that moment all us started doing two things. First, people started praying; even people who had not talked to God for quite some time. Second, folks began to read the emergency information cards with keen interest.

A crisis will do that for you. It will remind you that you are finite. It will reveal your insecurities. You will recognize that you’re not in control like you thought you were. In those moments it is easier to turn to God because we are ready to admit that we need him. In a crisis you may discover that all you have is God, yet God is all you need.

Once while watching the Colbert Report on Comedy Central, the guest was a Jesuit priest by the name of Jim Martin.  During the interview Colbert was reflecting on the downturn of the economy. He asked Father Martin why, during tough times, there is an increase in faith and the number of people attending church. Father Martin responded, “People tend to be more vulnerable during a downturn. Their defenses are lowered and it’s easier for God to break through.” He continued with this powerful statement, “It’s not that God is more present, it’s that we’re more open.”

There is one thing you can always count on during a crisis: God will be there. This is not because He just showed up when you needed him, but rather that the crisis revealed He is always with us. A very popular chapter from the Old Testament reminds us that “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for You are close beside me.” (Psalm 23:4)

Don’t waste a crisis. Let it lead you to God.

How To Be Content The Rest Of Your Life

A psychiatrist by the name of Dr. George Vaillant sought to identify traits in people in their 20’s which would predict subsequent success in life, career and ultimately whether they would be content later in life. He performed a longitudinal study, following people over the years of their life. His work culminated in a book entitled Aging Well.

His research revealed two common traits that are key factors in being a content person as you age.

The first factor is that a person with a growing circle of friendships is more likely to be content; those with a smaller circle of friends are less likely to be content. In other words, people with a widening social radius, rather than a shrinking number of people with whom they interact, were happier as they got older.

His findings encourage the deliberate effort of cultivating new friendships. In fact, he suggests that a person take a social inventory every six to twelve months, asking oneself, “Have I made a new friend recently?”

The second trait his research revealed is surprising. It states that foundational to the nurturing of long term relationships is the ability to forgive slights and injuries. This study was confirmed by others like Gregg Easterbrook, in The Progress Paradox. He makes a similar point, writing, “People are happy if they are optimistic, grateful and forgiving.”

What Valliant concluded regarding the second trait is that if you want a happy ending to your biography, you have to be willing to let go of the hurts that come your way from people you love and trust.

 Forgiveness is not a matter of excusing people who hurt you. They may not deserve a pardon. But in the words of Rabbi Harold Kurshner, “Forgiveness means cleansing your soul of the bitterness to what might have been, what should have been, and what didn’t have to happen. It’s coming to that point in your life where you are giving up all hope of having had a better past.”

The result of forgiveness is not that the person who hurt you will now be free, but that you, the one who extends forgiveness, are free to look forward with optimism and gratitude, rather than looking back with regret and bitterness. 

The Lord’s Prayer reminds us in Matthew 6:12, “Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.” When you do this, contentment and happiness will be a bigger part of your life.