Shame and Jesus Christ

“Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” Romans 10: 11

People often confuse shame with guilt. They are not the same. Especially toxic shame. Guilt is taking responsibility for a wrong action and feeling remorseful. Shame is believing that you are a bad person for what you have done.

While I was growing up a common expression was: “You should be ashamed of yourself.” I always took this to mean I was bad person and going to hell. Then I concluded that if I was bad, I might as well stop trying to be good. So I gave into my base instincts to steal, lie, and hurt people.

Growing up thinking you are bad is a terrible burden. It becomes a self-fulling prophecy and can ruin your life. You can end up in prison. You can become depressed. You can become angry and take your pain out on others.

This is where I was at in 1982. I was drowning my sorrows in alcohol. I was neglecting my children. I had no hope that I could do anything good. I had so self-esteem. I actually hated myself.

Then I got suicidal and decided to drink myself to death. But God had other plans for me. He sent an angel by the name of Michael. He was kind to me and I started talking to him about my depression. One day I asked him if one could die of loneliness. He looked me in the eye and said, “yes.”

I burst out in tears. He leaned over and I could see the cross around his neck. Then he showed me a coin with the words, “Alcoholics Anonymous.” I did not know what to say so I left his office. The next day he asked me if I had gone to an AA meeting. I said, “No, I was afraid they would cure me.” This is when I realized I was addicted and hopeless. I was terrified of changing even though I new it would save my life.

A week latter, I went to an AA meeting. There was a person at the front of the table telling her story. To be honest, she was telling my story. She also talked about the power of God to heal alcoholism. I was so moved I went back every day for 25 years.

I had been sober about a month, when the Holy Spirit came to me and whispered in my ear, “Go to where they talk about God all the time.” I took this to mean I should go to church. I shopped around and ended up with the Quakers because they support women in the ministry.

One day, while sitting in church, the Holy Spirit came to me again. He said, “Susan: I love you. You are loveable. I forgive you for your transgressions and there is no reason for you to be ashamed anymore. You made mistakes but now you get a second chance to do things right.”

That was on November 7, 1982. Since then I have let go of the shame, although I still feel remorseful when I do something wrong. To compensate, I help others who struggle with shame and low self esteem. If you are someone suffering from shame consider the following.

1. Adopt an attitude of self-acceptance or self-love. This means really understanding that you are a worthy person despite your shortcomings. This will come when you surrender to Jesus Christ.

2. As part of your new positive thinking campaign, learn how to superimpose new information over your old negative tapes. (Negative tapes are all the hurtful and inappropriate things people said about you while you were growing up.) Tell yourself that Jesus died to reclaim you, and his opinion is all that matters.

3. Reclaim your self-respect — the pride or satisfaction that comes from:

o Self-discipline
o Being responsible
o Honoring your own value system (Christian values)

Self-respect, which is a kind of conditional love, does not necessarily contradict the notion that you should love yourself unconditionally. Both concepts are important to maintain self-esteem. You must try to find the balance between loving yourself unconditionally and pushing yourself to do things that will engender self-respect.

4. Surround yourself, whenever possible, with people who affirm you (people who like you just the way you are). Like it or not, your relationship with others can erode your self-esteem. So make a point of choosing your friends carefully. You did not have a choice about this as a child, but as an adult you are free to pick and choose most of your companions. This means going to church and spending time with your Christian friends.

5. Stop trying to be perfect. No one is perfect. We all live in the shadow of perfection and are perfectly imperfect. We should strive for that while accepting the fact that we never arrive because we are being perfected all the days of our lives.

6. Be charitable. Do nice things for other people. At the same time, there should be some balance in your life between taking care of yourself and being kind to others.

7. Stop comparing yourself to others. You are special in your own way and this is the attitude you must have about yourself.

8. Learn how to receive love. Some people are so ashamed they actually dismiss love when it becomes available. Let the love come in.

9. Make amends if you have hurt someone. If they are unavailable, make living amends to someone who is still here.

10. To protect your newfound self-esteem, prepare yourself mentally for those times when people try to drag you down (people you can’t avoid like co-workers). Learn how to keep from taking them so seriously, as well as how to filter out inappropriate criticism. Remember: Only Jesus knows the real you.

11. Some people just can’t wake up one day, after years of devaluing themselves, and suddenly know that they are worthy people. If this is true for you, you may need something to take the place of the mirroring of love that you did not get from your parents when you were growing up. You may need a dramatic shift in consciousness before you can practice self-acceptance. This shift in consciousness will occur when you reach out to our savior Jesus Christ. When you are loved by Jesus, it is sometimes easier to take a second look at yourself and conclude that you are a valuable and worthy person.

If you work very hard on this task of building up your self-esteem, it will dissipate your toxic shame and you will have taken a great step forward. Your life will change and you will be genuinely happy—perhaps for the first time in your life. And it gets better. There is no end to the happiness you will know when you love yourself and Jesus Christ.

“When the melancholic dejectedly desires to be rid of life, of himself, is this not because he will not learn earnestly and rigorously to love himself? When a man surrenders himself to despair because the world or some person has left him faithlessly betrayed, what then is his fault except that he does not love himself the right way.” Soren Kierkegaard in Works of Love.

Susan Peabody is the author of The Art of Changing published by Celestial Arts in Berkeley, California.