Merriam-Webster possesses three definitions for shame: 1) “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety”, 2) “condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute”, and 3) “something that brings censure or reproach; also something to be regretted “. Therefore, shame focuses on self. I am a bad person or I will never be good enough or I cannot believe that I am the type of person who would do this or that. On the other hand, guilt is defined as “feelings of deserving blame especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy”. Unlike shame, guilt deals with the actual behavior. Guilt states, “I did something bad and I feel badly about my behavior”.
I experienced numerous situations, where shame and guilt were intertwined. One situation, in particular occurred when I was a child. I endured a traumatic childhood that included abuse from a caregiver on all levels. Due to the trauma, I was fueled with anger and violence. One day, I was late for school and everything continued to go wrong. I became so furious that I kicked the back of the dining room table chair. I damaged the chair leaving a permanent dent. Once I realized what I did, I felt terrible. I could not believe that my anger damaged property. In that moment, I determined that I was evil. I felt guilty, because I damaged what my mother worked hard to purchase. I felt ashamed that I was the person who behaved that way. Guilt occurred as a result of damaging property and shame occurred from my feelings about myself.
As a I continued to developed, I became plagued with the fear of abandonment. This fear engulfed me most of my life. I reasoned that it is common to develop fear due to the trauma that I endured. Nonetheless, one evening in my adulthood years, I began to think about the friendships that I developed over time. In the beginning, I was excited and happy. I thought about the memories created. In an instant, all of that changed. My thoughts shifted. I began to think what my life would be like without those friendships. In that moment, all of my traumatic memories surfaced. I panicked. My fears trapped me. I could no longer breathe, my heart was racing. I truly felt the onset of a heart attacked, due to the pressure that I was placing on my heart. I realized that if I did not calm down, I would die. The worse part of the situation was the fact that I was alone. Therefore, I could die and no one would know it. I spent the next thirty minutes talking myself through my fears. I forced myself to realize that I am no longer in a traumatic situation and my friends have not left me. Needless to say, by the time I worked through my panic attack, I was exhausted. I, eventually, feel asleep. The next day, I did not tell anyone what happened. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and guilty that twenty plus years later, my past still had a hold on me.
Over the years, I discovered similarities with my panic attack and the emotions of shame and guilt. Both trapped me in previous trauma. I believe shame and guilt not only trap people in trauma, but addictions, poor relationships, or anything else that pulls them away from God. This understanding became clearer about five years ago, when I watched a minister on television. He stated that shame and guilt kept people in a cycle of sin. He stated that when we are consumed by them, we sin even more. He explained that due to feeling so bad, we do not possess the will power to stop sinning. We already believe that we are bad and thus we sin even more. At that moment, I evaluated his statements in my own life. I remembered thinking his statements were profound and true. When I experienced my panic attack, the aftermath left me exhausted. I did not have anything left in me. When I was consumed with shame and guilt from my anger outbursts, I was exhausted to the point that I could not fight to see God in my life. The shame and guilt left me feeling unlovable, fearful, worthless, and a failure before God. Due to the shame and guilt, I kept relying on myself versus God. The worse part about shame and guilt is that it forced me to believe that God could not redeem me. Over time, I eventually realized that I did not serve a wimpy God who could not redeem me.
Continue Reading: Jesus’ Redemption from Shame & Guilt
