Between my wife and I, one of us regularly says, “I feel bad about (fill in the blank),” and the other person replies (or thinks because it happens so often), “Why do you feel bad? What’s the benefit?” Any guesses who’s who in this scenario? Women tend to have a gift for finding ways to feel guilt and shame. It’s one of the side effects of being the more thoughtful gender while men tend to be more easygoing with the side effect of enjoying life more (unless our wives don’t let us). It can be a great balance, but sometimes it can really drive each side crazy: (woman) “Don’t you care about me?” (guy) “Of course I do. That’s why I stuff down all of the things you do that bug me. Why do you always tell me what’s wrong with me and make mountains out of molehills?” (woman) “Those aren’t molehills. Those are works of art… to hold me back from being happy!”
I should be clear. I’m writing about shame because I know what it’s like to struggle with it. It’s not just something women face. My wife just has it different than I do. For instance, my wife is constantly coming up with ways to feel bad in the present like the other day a friend helped us move a couch with his van. I offered to pick him up something to eat and gave examples like Pho, Swiss Chalet, pizza, or anything else he might be craving, and he chose pizza. After a great, several hour visit with him, my wife and I were cleaning up and she was quite upset: “I should’ve made him something for dinner. He deserves better than pizza.” (me) “Why are you upset? I arranged for his help so that’s on me, and I gave him lots of options for food and he chose the pizza.” (wife) “That doesn’t matter. I need to be better.” I’ve mentioned how being married to someone who is overly nice can be a struggle. I think that gives a good example of why. Instead of being grateful for a very pleasant evening, she’s now twisted it into this negative outcome that destroys the happy feelings I had been feeling about the night. This kind of shame is a mood killer for both the person and everyone who gets to hear about their thoughts. To me, this is unnecessary shame. It’s self punishment and feeling bad without logical reason. The shame I experience is waaaaayyyyyy heavier. I don’t go small… not to brag.
What’s interesting is as I’ve become better at not judging others, my brain has gotten better at trying to make me feel shame – it’s such a great reward for my efforts (sarcasm oozing). I find our brains always have some type of attack going on whether it’s pride, judgement, fear, or shame. The following is an email I had sent to a friend after a discussion we had: I was thinking today about what you said last night and how your brain thinks so much about “what if” type stuff. My brain goes to things I’ve done wrong in the past, and I have to fight those thoughts with positivity. The best thing for me is to have a problem to solve because it occupies my brain and doesn’t leave room for the shame thoughts. My conclusion: Some people have brains that are busy and need something to think about. If there isn’t something pressing like a problem to solve our brain creates issues whether going to the future (i.e. fear) or the past (i.e. shame). Now that I know this I can push myself to work at keeping my brain busy.
Tip: This points out one of the benefits of talking with friends – it can lead to our own healthy conclusions. I had an idea of the busy brain, but after our conversation it clicked and now it’s better formulated.
My brain struggles with shame largely because it needs something to do. It’s like dogs. I was once told, “There are no bad dogs; only bored ones who need more exercise.” I’m sure training helps, but you get the point. Similarly, my brain is better behaved when it’s being properly challenged, which is why it’s helpful for me to write books, wedding ceremonies, and these lessons.
Before I look at what helps with shame, it’d be wise to define it – shocking. Shame is the idea that we did something wrong and we should feel bad about it. Where judgement is something we do to others (judging because we think we’re superior or inferior, something we project onto others as doing to us), shame is what we do to ourselves. They’re similar, however, because both involve disgust with shame focusing the disgust on ourselves, which leads to feelings of sadness, anger, and/or fear. Like all of our emotions, shame is a gift from God because the fear of it can keep us from doing things we should be ashamed of doing. Last week my family spent a night at Great Wolf Lodge. There was a good sale and you can do it pretty reasonably when it’s only 50 minutes away from home. By me justifying going there, was that shame coming out? No. It’s actually me not wanting anyone to feel shame for not bringing their own family there, especially when I mentioned this to one person and their response was, “Isn’t that super expensive?” If you’ve ever been to a family based water park and you’re like me, you’ll have thoughts like: “Does anyone have shame anymore?” If I was single, my body wouldn’t be helpful for picking up women (jiggle isn’t sexy), but as a dad of three girls, I do pretty well since I still exercise. Body wise, I was definitely above average in this crowd of dad bods, but unlike them I gladly wore a swim shirt; why? Because no one needs to see this pasty, Jell-O insulated body topless. A healthy sense of shame helped me protect other people’s eyes. If I was Ryan Reynolds, I’d never wear a shirt because that would be my gift to others, but that’s not my situation. This leads to a scale:
No Shame (-10)———Healthy Shame (0)———Too Much Shame (10)
No Shame leads to some “ugly” situations (like at the water park), especially since it can lead to people acting like entitled, thoughtless boobs who make bad decisions. It can also lead to a very common action that people do who feel Too Much Shame – hide. People who don’t feel enough healthy fear of shame can lack the drive to do what they should while those who feel Too Much Shame can be too scared to move. The latter is especially unfortunate because hiding leads to its own sense of shame. Too Much Shame also often leads to people being overly people pleasing, which in the long run can lead to more hiding because the person is burnt out from pleasing others – that’s fun.
So what is the best cure for Too Much Shame like my wife and I both experience? It goes back to my favorite Bible verse: “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” (1 Thes 5:18) (It’s amazing how everything we need to be emotionally healthy is found in the Bible. It’s too bad Christians can often miss that.) This means, whenever I have a bad memory sneak into my brain I need to ask what’s good about it? This can be broken down to two questions: What can I learn from this moment and what can I be thankful for? Finding the good in something is the best way to fight shame. The second best thing is to then distract ourselves and think about something else. This becomes suppressing, however, if we don’t put some positivity into the memory first. Positivity is like medicine for bringing healing to the wound.
Bonus: I know a couple wonderful ladies who really struggle with guilt and shame and they believe it’s largely because of growing up in conservative Christian homes, but the truth is that’s a skill they would’ve been mastering with or without church. Their church background was likely a fertilizer to make their shame bigger and stronger, but it would’ve been there either way. In the previous lesson on judgement, we looked at how Christians aren’t the only people who struggle with being judgemental; we just tend to be better at it than some because people who are obsessed with rules (the nasty, twisted form of Christianity) or being as perfect as possible (a painful, twisted form of Christianity) will end up judgemental. We are also good at encouraging shame because on one hand, Christianity recognizes that we all sin and that separates us from God. Catholics take this to the next level with their imagery of Jesus dead on the cross. It’s like they’re trying to say: “This is your fault! You should feel terrible!” The sad thing is that was probably the original intention because guilt, shame, and fear are powerful tools to persuade those growing up without proper education. On the other hand, Christianity is supposed to celebrate God’s grace and redemption. In general, God is about balance (i.e. good and bad, love and hate, light and dark). In this situation, we need to remember the balance. Yes, there should be an element of shame for our sin, but there also needs to be a celebration for God’s grace because forgetting one (or both) leaves us very unhealthy.
This week may you consider how you can use shame as a way to make better decisions and if you struggle like I do, may you try to fight it’s meanness with finding the good in the situation.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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