If I were to give a personal definition of shame, it was all the things in my life that were unspeakable. Since about the age of 7 or 8 I started to collect certain things that I didn’t dare talk to anyone about, and it grew throughout the years. It was filled with deeply embarrassing things that I did, times that I hurt someone I loved for selfish reasons, and secret repulsive behaviors I engaged in.
All of these shameful things were real weights in my life, they were extremely present and significant in my mind, yet totally absent in my words and confessions. My reality was therefore twisted around things that were genuine, but treated as if they weren’t, and that twisting caused me all manner of anxiety and misery.
In the moment my conundrum seemed so incredibly complicated, yet the solution to it was ridiculously simple. If my crushing shame was all of the things that I couldn’t speak, then all I had to do was speak them aloud and they would cease to be shame, by definition. After twenty years I did eventually start divulging the things I had refused to talk about, and the relief and release that I experienced took me entirely by surprise. Only in hindsight has the logic of what transpired in those moments of confession revealed itself to me. I confessed not knowing the significance of what I was doing, but I received the full benefits of it regardless. I was speaking the unspeakable, so the shameful became unashamed.
If you have any things in your own life that are unspeakable, I urge you to look for the person and place where you can start to confess your guilt and shame. I wouldn’t say to divulge those things to just anyone, Jesus did teach us not to “cast our pearls before swine,” after all. But I would hope that you could find at least one trusted minister, or well-meaning friend, or recovery group of similarly-burdened individuals. Just find anyone who can receive that confession and offer you peace and wholeness in return. I can tell you that in my own life nothing else has given me as much healing and change of heart as this, and I pray it may be the same for you, too.
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. - Genesis 3:10
The story of Adam and Eve is strange and fantastic, and at first glance it may seem difficult to relate to. Or at least, it seems difficult until Adam and Eve discover shame. When we hear of them scrambling to hide from God the story suddenly becomes all too familiar. Each of us knows that moment of uncomfortable exposure where we wish we could sink into the floor and disappear from the disapproving glare of another.
Like Adam and Eve, shame is a developed emotion within us. Infants and babies do not exhibit it to any degree, but starting around the age of two or three they start to recognize when they have been caught behaving naughtily and will sometimes cry because of it. Though shame is not present at the beginning, it is inevitable. Like sexual feelings, the fact that it isn’t present from birth does not mean that it is any less real or certain.
Shame is an essential, if unpleasant, part of learning how to conduct oneself within a society. Every child develops it alongside their need for friends and social identity. When properly handled, all of these will guide is into becoming a healthy, well-adjusted individual. But that requires us to embrace shame’s pain, and too often we try to find ways to short-circuit it instead. This, of course, means hiding our shame and crafting the façade to cover it, and this means splitting ourselves into two realities.
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. - Romans 7:19
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. - Matthew 26:41
Literature and theater have long been fascinated with the dual nature of man. The Phantom of the Opera shows us a man both hideous and beautiful. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde features a man who is one part kind and one part violent. The Brothers Karamazov is full of characters who believe they are one way but then discover an opposite side to themselves.
Yesterday we discussed the part of our personality that we wear like a mask, a façade that we use to cover the shameful ways we feel inside. Many the addict has confessed to a dual life, trying to sustain two completely opposite existences. If the façade is intended to attract the people that we want to like us, then the inner shame tends is all the qualities that we think would repulse those same people. Addicts express sentiments such as “people think I’m so great, but if they knew who I really was, they’d run for the hills.” Shame represents all the qualities that we think make us unlovable.
And this makes our shame very difficult to expose. It is literally the things that we feel will make people abhor and reject us, so how are we to willingly unveil those very parts to other people? It feels like an act of social suicide!
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! - Isaiah 5:20
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; - 2 Timothy 4:3
Of course, there is not only shame, but shamelessness. There are those whose answer to unpleasant feelings of embarrassment and exposure is to reject those feelings and put gross excess and inappropriate behavior on a pedestal.
Just as excessive heat and sharpness should cause pain, excessive indulgence and immorality should cause shame. Those that live shamelessly may think that they are living a truer existence because they have thrown away the phony outer layer of the façade, but in reality they have made their shame into their façade. Being accepting of the unacceptable is not authentic, it is just as much a fraud as the person trying to live a dual life.
There are also those who admit to their shameful deeds, and admit that they are indeed shameful, but pitifully conclude that there is nothing they can do about it. They are just no good, and that’s that.
Thus, just as how those who self-identify with their façade stunt themselves by living a lie, so too do those who self-identify with their shame. Because while shame is a deeper layer of our psyche, it is still not the true us. Stopping our progression at this level will still prevent us from living with fulness and joy.
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Yesterday I explained my own façade, the way I try to put on an intelligent and kind face to everyone I meet. But what is beneath that layer? What is my shame? What are the secret behaviors I always felt rendered me unlovable?
Well, as one might expect, they tend to be the opposite of the façade that I project. They are my lack of intelligence and my selfishness.
For lack of intelligence, I have always felt that I am lagging behind the curve. I have always been terrified to have my knowledge tested, and for the first several years of college I cheated in every test that I could. Eventually I was caught and brought before a school counselor. I thought I would try to lie my way out of it, admitting to my dishonest behavior would be social suicide after all, but something came over me as I sat down with the counselor, and I peeled back the façade and showed my shame instead. I admitted that the accusation was completely true, that I had cheated, and that I had been doing so for quite some while. And, most unexpectedly, I actually felt relieved to have finally been discovered.
Fortunately for me, the school showed mercy. I did not die socially, I was not expelled, and from that moment on I never cheated on a test again. But the temptation to do so was always there. I still dreaded having my knowledge measured, because I was never able to be confident that my intelligence on its own could ever be enough. But a change had finally occurred, where I was willing to accept failure and embarrassment rather than pretend to something false.
For selfishness, I have my addictions. Compulsive behaviors that are based around getting what instantaneous pleasure I want. My addictions primarily take the form of lust, overeating, and excessive media use.
Of these three, lust is certainly the one that has brought me the most shame. I have felt absolutely disgusted with myself for using women for my own gratification, viewing pornography and typing away in chat rooms, all the while pretending to be a loving husband and an attentive father. I told myself for years that I could not break the façade, that I could not ruin the image of a shining knight that my wife and son had for me. As with the cheating in school, I really believed that I could never tell the truth, and unlike with academic cheating, I knew how to cover my tracks well enough that I likely would have never been caught. I lived the lie and I never let the mask slip.
Until, one day, I did something different. One day I had had enough, and I wrote my wife a letter and left it on our doorstep. In the next two days I met with my ecclesiastical leader and scheduled an appointment with an addiction recovery program. Since that moment, my secret shame has been out in the open, and I have shared my absolute worst moments with therapy and twelve step groups. Much to my surprise, revealing my shame has not made me unlovable. In fact, it has drawn people closer.
However, accepting that we have this layer of shame and bringing it to the light is still not the end of the road. There is a reason why we do the things that we are ashamed of, and that reason emanates from deeper down. Tomorrow we will approach the next layer, which is our wounds. We will come to understand their pain and how we mishandle them with shame and façade. I’ll see you then.
Spiritual Wanderings 