Are the things in your life serving you or shaming you? For example, do the people you spend time with, are the activities you’re engaged with, does your internal dialogue produce shame? If so, we need to talk about that. Shame has no place in your life.

The way I was raised created a lot of shame in my life. As a pastor’s kid, I grew up in a highly conservative religious culture. Our life was church every day of the week. Between Sunday morning services and youth group gatherings, and fellowship parties, church became synonymous with breathing. It was the only thing I knew.

A foundation built on shame.

Much of my foundational thinking, beliefs, and ideas formed because of my upbringing. I want to be clear that there has been a lot of beauty and incredible outcomes because of that. However, I’ve also had to dismantle more of it than I haven’t. I had to rediscover for myself what life means, what humanity means, what spirituality means, how to be in a relationship and community with others. I’ve had to walk away from much of my upbringing because it no longer holds space for me. (Another topic for another day.)

I believed something was wrong with me from the moment I was born. I was taught that I was inherently guilty and bad. Sinful would be the word used in that culture. It meant that something within me was wrong and that in and of myself, I was not okay. I needed something outside of myself to save me because I was not good enough at my core.

It was messaging rooted through and through in shame.

As a pastor’s kid, I lived on a pedestal. I was watched and expected to behave and act in specific ways. I was supposed to be a role model. I was supposed to be the good little pastor’s kid. So, that’s who I tried to be. That’s the ideal that I tried to achieve.

However, my core belief said something was wrong with me, and I was not good enough. I’m not complete in and of myself. This made it hard to match the expectations people had for me.

Absorbing Shame

I consider myself lucky because I didn’t have adults in my life directly telling me that I wasn’t good enough, but I understand some of you do. I know that some come from families where their parents outright say things like, “You’ll never amount to anything. You’re no good.”

It breaks my heart because not only are you dealing with the effects of shame. You’re dealing with the words of shame as well.

In my life, shame was a message I absorbed. It was like it leaked inside my psyche in indirect ways. The messages around me communicated the foundation idea that something was wrong with us.

So, shame became a normal way of life because I didn’t know other options. I didn’t know that shame didn’t have to be a part of life. So, I started to see shame as something that keeps us in check and full of humility. But that’s the role of healthy guilt. That’s not the role of shame.

Whether it was feeling shame because I had “lustful” thoughts, or my inability to meet the high standards placed upon my life, shame was my go-to experience.

I couldn’t be enough for anyone. I couldn’t behave well enough for anyone. No matter what I did or how hard I strived, something was wrong with me. After believing this for so long, I felt broken as a human. I felt incomplete. I felt like there were pieces of me missing. I felt and believed that something was so wrong with me and that to be enough, I had to rely on something outside of myself – a person, a parent, a friend, a savior.

The spiral of shame.

But what happens when those forces outside of you fail and all you have left is yourself? But the messages they’ve communicated scream that you aren’t capable or enough by yourself. You don’t have everything you need within.

You will start to spiral because shame has led you to believe that something is wrong with you, and you can’t fix it without the help of something outside of you. So, you feel worse. You feel lost. You feel hopeless. You feel abandoned. You feel depressed. You feel unworthy.

This is how shame operates: It starts outside of you (through direct or indirect messages) that cause you to feel worthless inside. So, to fix that feeling inside, you look for answers outside of yourself, leading you right back to the original shame, telling us once again that something is flawed with us.

Shame is not a feeling.

Shame is an experience that we have that causes us to feel emotions. It is something that happens to us. So yes, you feel many emotions when shame happens to you, and one of those feelings might be ashamed, but the feelings are independent of shame. This is why shame is so powerful.

It can suddenly feel out of your control to fix when you see shame as something that happens to you, independent of your feelings. No matter what we do, we cannot fix shame. The emotions that shame brings, like humiliation, regret, foolishness, sadness, disappointment, can come and go, but shame becomes a constant companion. It is a continuous force that always wants to make you feel small, less than, humiliated, embarrassed, incomplete, unworthy.

Shame has built in protocols.

Shame is never okay. It is never a good thing. If you’re processing this through a shame filter, I cant almost guarantee it’s trying to convince you that shame is needed to keep us in check. Shame needs to be needed, so it has these built-in protocols that get activated as an attempt to keep you living in shame. But shame isn’t meant to be a check and balance in our life. Guilt is.

More specifically, healthy guilt can keep you in line. The role of guilt is to let us know when we’ve done something wrong so that we can fix it. Healthy guilt is a powerful force for good. Guilt, however, doesn’t want you to believe you are wrong but that you did something wrong.

Shame wants you to believe that something is wrong with you. Shame is a control mechanism that outside forces use to control us internally.

Emotionally, mentally, physically – shame is meant to make us feel wrong. In the hands of the wrong people, shame becomes a way to control and influence you. Until you have done the work to keep shame in check, hearing me say shame doesn’t have to be your experience anymore will feel wrong. But remember, that’s coming from the shame, and shame is never okay.

What do we do with shame?

If you came from a similar background and grew up in a very shame-based culture, I think the first thing you have to do is recognize that shame does not serve you. There is absolutely no upside to shame. There is no reason for it to be a part of your life.

We are so ingrained to believe that shame is what keeps us humble and on a straight and narrow path that we can’t even fathom a life without it, but it’s possible. So you have to begin by believing that shame has no place in your life.

Every day, remind yourself of this, especially when the feelings within arise or when the thoughts start to form because of shame coming at you. Say it out loud, “Shame has no place in my life.”

What causes your shame?

Think about what might be causing the experience of shame in your life. Is it because of a relationship? Is it a religion? What is it that causes your shame? It’s always going to be outside of yourself. You might not see how that’s possible, but shame is a force outside of us. It does not come from within.

Shame happens to us and wants us to believe something is wrong with us. It’s a powerful force that you won’t be able to tune out immediately. It takes practice and repetition to turn messages of “I’m not good enough” into “I am enough!” It takes effort to switch from thinking you were born evil to deeply understanding you are good enough just because you’re alive.

But you already have everything you need within you to silence shame.