Shame: Part 1

What does shame mean to me?

This is Part 1 because I plan to revisit my relationship with shame again. This will serve as a current status report—a baseline if you will.

I have a love-hate relationship with shame. I love shame because I feel like it fuels me to do more than I otherwise would and could. It is hard to admit to myself, but fear—often the fear of feeling shame; feeling like I am not acceptable—motivates me just as much as power, prestige, money, and other incentives. I think I default to fear in the false belief that without this fear I might not quest for achieving all that I can become. I also hate shame. I have felt shame to varying degrees much of my life—I think we all do. I hate when shame grows within me; it then haunts me, cripples me, splits me, and breaks me.

I was introduced to shame in college when given a book titled Shame & Grace written by Lewis Smedes. The content and concepts of the book grabbed me. It was like your favorite novel, one you just can’t put down. One where you go beyond the words on the page and the story they convey and you step into the pages. You are in the action. Shame & Grace—although not a novel—pulled me in.

When reading this book in college I spent a lot of time on charter buses going to the airport, driving to games or practices or the hotel. Shame & Grace was my bus book. Headphones on to drown out the teammates conversations; it was just me learning and reflecting on my shame and God’s grace. Coming out of those couple of months of self-reflection and prayer I was transformed. I learned, amongst other things, that shame destroys the very part of me that I need in order to believe that I can change. A weight was lifted from me. I was empowered to better understand and intercept the shame within messages people were sending me or more often I was sending myself. So when my coach said, “You can’t even block out my son! How can I ever put you in the game knowing we need your position to rebound the basketball?” I would be able to receive that message, intercept and filter out the shame message I would have heard previously—You are worthless. I should never play you in a game; you are no better than my 5-year old at basketball—and receive the message as it was likely intended, Steve, we need rebounding from your position and when you are in the game—because we need and trust you—rebounding needs to be a priority for you.

“Shame destroys the very part of me that I need
in order to believe that I can change.”

Steve & Shame

How does shame feel for me now as I am starting to re-engage and re-examine shame’s role in my life these past several years? This shame-reflection is an exercise I hope to carryout periodically. It may be a lifelong process, much like for those people who actively manage their diet, their exercise, or their mood.

Shame is a burden—a heaviness—on my thoughts, actions, and feelings. When burdened with shame most all of my life is toilsome. When burdened with shame my life is functional—usually—but not fulfilling.

In my reflection, I don’t see much of this shame being intentional by other people. It is simply how my brain processes. I know some people who are predisposed to be forgiving, to be trusting, to be gullible, or to be positive. For me, I think my brain is predisposed to shame. That doesn’t mean that I have to accept that fate and that there are not ways to heal from, identify, and avoid shame. I’ve done it previously in my life and will do it again.

My brain at times seems to default to the following responses that shame me.

Compliments Shame Me
It seems odd that compliments can be shaming. When I am not depressed and burdened by shame, I tend to receive compliments appropriately. they encourage and lift my spirits. However, when burdened by shame and depression, my perspectives are often skewed. My mood falls down a few notches on the scale and my thoughts veer toward unworthiness. As a result, genuine compliments others might offer me are intercepted before they could ever hit home. I often hear them, turn them around, and shame myself with them. Why? Because I feel I am not worthy of the compliment. Because I don’t think those who are complimenting me are sincere. Because if you really knew the truth about me, you wouldn’t compliment me.

I recall a compliment for being humble. My mind immediately hijacked the compliment and said if they only knew how self-centered and prideful I really am. My girlfriend complimented me on shirts she bought me for Christmas. I responded, “The shirts are nice. I’m sorry that this mannequin doesn’t do them justice.” Co-workers have complimented me on my dependability, a compliment I discount with if they only knew how many times I have not been there for a colleague or a client! A charity I support thanked me for my generosity. If they only knew that the gift I gave them was far less than I actually could give and was thinking of giving.

Each of these examples show how shame shifts compliments that are intended to build-up to comments that tear-down. As a result, I don’t feel the lifting, the joy, the appreciation, the acknowledgement of the compliment. My shame is like a forcefield and becomes self-perpetuating.

Success-Focus Shames Me
I am competitive and have set lofty goals for myself in some areas of my life. Like many things in life, this goal-setting is a double-edged sword. The goals provide incentive, something to look and work towards. They also provide ample fuel for shame if I don’t achieve or measure-up to the goals.

Acquaintances are socially gifted, they carry themselves with class and composure. It seems that no matter the setting, they fit in well. I don’t feel like I fit in. I’ve set that as a goal and at times I feel close to achieving it and at times I give up. Most often I feel like I fall well short. I am just not good enough to carry myself in such a way.

Within the workplace I have achieved some amount of success. I’ve been fortunate to have learned from excellent and willing teachers. However, I feel that I have conducted some sort of fraud to be given these work positions. A friend’s family is well-connected and successful by most any measure. I don’t feel secure in a sustained relationship with this friend, and worthy of that, because I just don’t measure up. I’ve been blessed with athletic ability that provided me some amount of success in college basketball. However, I rarely saw those as my achievements, but as gifts from God that I can’t take any ownership/credit for.

My failures are mine alone,
my successes are due to God or others.

Undefined Ideals Shame Me
Success-focused shame often coincides with ideals that are not well defined. This is where success overlaps with a quest for perfectionism. I don’t believe perfectionist accurately define perfectionism. Perfect is God. Humans are not God. So, as one with some perfectionism in me, I strive to be better and better, but the ideal is not to be God. It is undefined. Let me share some examples.

When Bridget got cancer I recall setting forth the ideal that I could be a perfect parent for Grace and Chloe. I thought that appropriate discipline within a boundless love environment would provide my girls with a nurturing and safe environment. However, a perfect parent can not be defined. If it could, the definition would need to shift as the children age. It then creates for me shame. I don’t know how to define the ideal, but I do feel that I have fallen short of whatever that ideal could be.

This dynamic impacts my life in my career where I feel like I disappoint both myself and my colleagues and clients. It effects my house as I think of how clean, organized, and how the yard should be maintained. In friendships I am too often a taker and not a giver. I don’t know what defines a great friend, but I feel that I fall short of any reasonable definition. Leadership is an area of growth for me, where I am still working on how the ideal leader would be defined. What I feel is that God has blessed me with the capabilities to be a great leader, but I likely will fail in the effort.

Church Shames Me
I am so very blessed to have been born into a family that is loving, consistent, non-abusive, supportive, and that taught me and shared with me their Christian faith. I went to church nearly every sunday since birth. Attending church, reading the Bible, devotionals after meals, and a general Christian ethos permeated our family. Being predisposed to shame, the Christianeeze of my family and community brought on shame.

In college I felt that in order to be acceptable to Christ, I needed to be Christ-like. I needed to get all my “ducks in a row” before I would be or could be acceptable to Christ and therefore graced with salvation. This is just how I think when I am not actively shame-aware. There are other examples where my self-worth were measured against the church illuminating how far I fell short. I think of Ephesians 4:22-24 which when shame-laden I read as a measuring stick. When not laden with shame I read it as being created by God in his image—grace. I also read Matthew 5:48 and shame-filled feel worthless of His love and grace. Otherwise, I read it as how God intends us to live prior to sin entering into the world and how we will live following Christ’s second-coming.

The Christian life is not the path of least resistance, it is active rebellion against our human nature. All to often I succumb to human nature both in action and in shame. The shame in this breaks me.

Parents/Family Shame Me
It is hard for family to not play a role in shame. You spend so much time together, have conversations together, and often want the approval of one another. So it was for me and my family.

Some of the completely benign comments made by siblings or parents that brought me varying degrees of shame are:

• “You are the most selfish child.”
  Quite possibly I was the most self-centered of my siblings. When I heard comments from siblings or from my parents about this it always hurt me. I felt judged as less than the others; the least valuable child. I remember, in fact, one occasion where I was purposefully not self-centered. My brother, Paul, got a plaid shirt after I got one earlier in the week. (Paul didn’t like the inequity so my parents made up for it.) The one problem in my eyes was that Paul’s shirt was much nicer than mine! I remember consciously not saying that Paul was treated better than me. I attempted to be less self-centered because of the shame I felt.
• “Mr. Destructo!”
  I destroyed things as a kid. Give me a radio for my birthday and within a couple of weeks I had unscrewed the back and was monkeying around with the insides. For Christmas my parents gave me a saw—I loved tools, real tools—and so that night I took that saw to my bed frame and made it half-way through before being caught. (Incidentally, the first time my late-wife was at the house to visit my parents she sat on my childhood bed and the bed frame broke right where I took my saw to it 20 years prior!) I was given the periodic and appropriate nickname of Mr. Destructo! It was a fun-loving name to those that created and applied it; it was shameful for me. It didn’t stop me from being destructive, but I felt that I was a lesser child because of my destructive nature.
• “Cry baby”
  I cried a lot as a kid. It provided attention, expressed easily my frustration, and was a tool to often get what I desired. So, I cried. As a result, I was called the “cry baby.” Like the nickname of Mr. Destructo, it was deserved, but a title that I didn’t appreciate; although I didn’t change my crying ways. Even as a kid I recalled feeling shame at the name “cry baby.”
• “Ramps”
  I was probably 4 or 5 year old. My siblings felt that my nose was different than those of the other family members. Their noses were peaked, sharp, like your roof. Apparently my nose was more sloped, like a pagoda’s roof. So my siblings for a few months told me I had ramps. It was clear in the label that I was different. For me, it was not a good kind of different.

“For me, I think my brain is predisposed to shame.”

Each of these is an example, mostly benign in isolation. Each instance where I received/feel shame is relatively minor. There has been no sexual, physical, or emotional abuse in my life. However, I believe that shame is accretive. Like the snowfall that paralyzes traffic, each flake is soft and harmless, but when piled upon each other they can wreck havoc. I look forward to a warming of my soul and my mind through prayer, counseling, grace, and practice so that the snowflakes of shame melt.