Ashamed of Our Shame: Destroying the Lie by Screaming the Truth

O my God, in You I trust,

Do not let me be ashamed;

Do not let my enemies exult over me.

I was on an ill-fated date that I was 87% sure would not be followed up on. We got along, even had a lot to talk about, but the synchronization just wasn’t present (for clarity, we both left it on good terms).

Walking through Powells, because at least once per fling, romance, “friendlationship,” and bonafide relationship in Portland a visit to Powells is a requirement, we moseyed by the book.

Pointing to it, she said rather quietly “this author is a 4 as well” (I’ve discussed the Enneagram at length in another post, here is a link for that if you are interested).

The title simply was If You Feel Too Much.

Well… shit.

I hid my excitement about the book, for some reason not desiring to buy it front of her even though we both were self-proclaimed ‘feelers.’ A few days later I picked up the copy of it, written by Jamie Tworkowski, the To Write Love On Her Arms guy.

The company whose mission, stated plainly on their webpage and all over their social media, is as follows: “a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. [We] exist to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.”

I feel like they plagiarized my whole life story and didn’t give me any royalties.

Kidding aside, I didn’t know before that I needed companies like this to exist. I didn’t know that reading his story was like reliving my own journey through an estranged soul doppelgänger.

Reflecting back to the dark ages of Myspace and other doomed social media outlets, I remember a boy who “felt too much.” I remember a boy who was so damn sad and had no idea why. I remember a boy who existed, survived, and was constantly pounded by the asshole they call shame.

This boy was not alone, however.

And neither is the man who is writing this.

“You are a slut.”

“You aren’t good enough for her/him.”

“You’re too fat.”

“You’re too awkward.”

“Nobody even likes you.”

“You’re nothing but a failure.”

“You’ll never be pretty enough.”

“You deserved the abuse.”

“You are a (fill in an awful slur, whether it be racist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc.)”

“Nobody could love you.”

“You are stupid.”

“You are nothing but a fuck up.”

“You are beyond saving.”

Everyone reading this has heard and/or felt one of the things listed above if not several. If you claim otherwise, either you haven’t received any counseling or you need to take more interior inventory.

What’s crazy about all these lies is how over time, they are essentially a replay of the same narrative over and over we have heard since we were little. In a sense, the Devil is not that good of a storyteller, but is a master of exploiting the same deep and heavy emotional beats.

All of us start life entirely innocent. After all these years working with elementary aged kids, there is a pure and holy clarity to everything they say, experience, and feel. We never fault them for expressing themselves. We can get annoyed, frustrated, and sometimes lash out at them for their self-centered attempts to attend to their needs, but we never berate them for looking for love, acceptance, and respect.

Except when all of us get wounded. Whether by loving or abusive parents, kind or vicious friends, nice or mean teachers, and sweet or vindictive partners, we all get hurt.

The primary way these wounds manifest throughout our lives is in our shameful mantras. In the ways that we isolate to protect our fractured state, the ignored texts from our loved ones, our flat “I’m good” responses to our coworkers, our reach for that fifth beer or fourth plate of food or no plate of food or yet another hour long binge of porn.

The more I learn about myself and others, the more I believe it is shame that causes behavior, not behavior that causes shame. They, of course, have a symbiotic relationship, but I think it is more helpful to see shame as more villainous than behavior, because even good, moral people can operate entirely from a place of shame.

I think with the rise of the internet age has dawned a rise in deeper attempts to hide shame. I think we all, in one way or another, are ashamed of our shame. We think that adulthood is about overcoming all of the internal obstacles of our souls, with the successes against these obstacles normally being external and therefore easy to showcase.

Since we all hide our shame, we prove to others how we have overcome it by the fact that our successes have increased and our failures have declined. Whether it be through a pretty wife (or husband, progress, right?), a well-paying and meaningful job, another stamp on the passport, or any other shame-concealing proof of having “arrived,” we all work to prove to others that what we believe about ourselves internally is false externally.

We do not understand that we were never meant to endure the weight of our shame alone. We were all always meant to destroy it by screaming the truth to one another.

The Truth has a name.

I think as a remedy to shame experienced by all, we need to learn how to bless one another.

The term blessing has a plethora of uses scripturally, but for the sake of this writing I will focus on Jesus usage of it.

Oft overlooked in Jesus magnum opus in the Sermon on the Mount is His immediate address of the plight of His fellow Israelites. In their context, Rome had imperial control over the whole region. For the average Jewish person in Jesus era, hardship, abuse, and shame were commonplace. We often think of the literal physical toll of such subservience, but what is it not considered as much is the psychological, emotional, and spiritual toll. Research has been plentiful about the plight of black Americans and their continued carried “weight” of their enslaved ancestors. I believe this was felt too for the Jewish audience of Jesus message.

But Jesus is not MERELY the Son of Man and God; He was also the most emotionally intelligent man to ever live.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

What an audacious claim. Before blessing peacemakers, before blessing the seekers of righteousness and before blessing the meek, all of whom exhibit morally good traits, Jesus blesses the depressed.

The lonely.

The beaten down.

The “not good enoughs.”

Those who struggle to get out of bed in the morning.

And yet, we don’t take Jesus seriously. How often do we seek to bless those among us who are missing the mark? How often do we seek to be blessed when we are missing the mark?

Jesus underlying assumption is that those in dire straits need to be acknowledged, encouraged, and healed. The premise is not for them to clean up before they come to church, before they come to community group, before they come to Him, but that by the actual coming, they will then be healed.

And yet, how many among us are willing to admit we need healing? We need a blessing? We need love? How many of us actively look for ways we can heal, bless, and love those around us who are poor in spirit?

Even with the rise of vulnerability as a popular term, true exposure of the burden of our false selves is daunting, let alone for us to ask others for relief from the lies. We cling to these false stories harder than we cling to any other true reality. This monster called shame maintains its power because although it has damaged us far more than it has ever “helped” us, we believe the lies it tells. We trust in them. We believe that the emotional wreckage it keeps causing us is further proof of our insufficiency.

And as we connect more and more with each other through screens (or, rather, disconnect), this further exacerbates the problem.

It is in community that the false self must come to die. It is in community that the True Self in Christ is brought to life.

For too long have we clung to unhelpful, destructive, and toxic beliefs about who we are. Too often do we seek “confirmation” of our own insufficiency rather than actual confirmation of our place in the Beloved.

Shame is very real, but it is not true. The acknowledged feeling of “not enough-ness” is powerfully felt by every human, if in varying forms and intensities. But shame is not the author of our story.

While I mentioned before about how shame causes a need to cope rather than the inverse, it is we who, emboldened and encouraged and blessed by our brothers and sisters around us, can live counter to the shameful mantras we have heard all of our lives. Instead of operating from an inward place of hopelessness and despair, we operate from the blessings of the body of Christ, who point us continually into who they see us as.

They will know us by our love, as the famous quote goes, and that love must pierce the power of shame for real transformation to take place.

We must destroy the lies of shame, of the devil, and of the world by screaming the Truth of Christ, His kingdom, and His will for the world to those around us and also to ourselves. By blessing others, so too will we be able to receive blessing. And through blessing will come healing and a rewriting of our mantras.

Where we heard darkness, we will hear light.

Where we heard cruelty, we will hear mercy.

Where we heard judgment, we will hear compassion.

And where we heard shame, we will hear the voice of Christ calling us home into the arms of Our Father.