Shame & Guilt
Gregg’s Reflection
Guilt says “I did a bad thing.” Shame says “I’m a bad person.” Shame was the driver emerging from my belief I was ‘not good enough.’ Most of my business success emerged from my efforts to prove this belief wrong.
You will see a quote from Richard Rohr below telling us,
God never leads the soul by guilt or shame.
I had a stern father, who always challenged me, but could not show love. Perhaps that is why my picture of God in those times was one of a Judge, waiting to whack me for doing wrong. As I walked deeper into discipleship, and the deeper journey to God, I found my picture of God changing.
Now, I see a loving God, full of compassion, yearning for us more that we yearn for God. That has been part of my journey to move beyond shame. I still feel remorse when I have done something stupid, but that is good guilt. Shame only rarely shows its face to me these days, and it quickly dissipates when I reflect on it.
I’ve worked with my spiritual director, Mark Ritchie, for about 14 years not. Hear what Mark has to say about shame:
Shame is a tool of the evil one to drive a wedge between me and God to make me feel unworthy of love.
I remember one time about 20 years ago, we were flying into Denver. A wicked crosswind rocked the plane 100 feet off the ground as we landed. I was sure we were going to be scattered across the runway. In that moment, I knew I wasn’t ready to face God. I hadn’t done enough good yet. These days, I look forward to seeing the face of God someday. Just not too soon.
So, wade into this post and see how toxic shame is to your life and self-esteem. Rohr continues on to say,
Even appropriate guilt does not lead to deeper love of God.
So rest in the knowledge you are a son or daughter of the living God, loved before you were born, loved with every breath you take, loved into eternity when your time on earth is done. Perhaps my post on Mirror/Face of God would help move beyond toxic images of yourself and God. And, perhaps my post on Perfection will help you let go of toxic pictures of what Scriptures mean by perfection.
Here is a short audio introduction:
Journaling Prompts
What would it take for you to quit believing the lie that you live in shame before God? Is your image of God someone to fear? Toxic? Talk with a pastor or spiritual advisor about it. How were you shaped by the comments of parents and others? How are your children being shaped by your characterizations of their behavior?
Scripture
Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
Psalm 34:5
For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you.
Isaiah 41:13
Because the sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.
Isaiah 50:7
For God did not send his son down into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:17
Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1
Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.
Romans 10:11
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2
Ancient Writings
Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.
He desired me so I came close. No one can come near God unless He has prepared a bed for you. A thousand souls hear His call every second, but most every one then looks into life’s mirror and says, “I am not worthy to leave this sadness.”
When I first heard His courting song, I too looked at all I had done in my life and said, “How can I gaze into His omnipresent eyes?” I spoke those words with all my heart, but then He sang again, a song even sweeter, and when I tried to shame myself once more from His presence God showed me His compassion and spoke a divine truth, “I made you, dear, and all I make is perfect. Please come close, for I desire you.” "What we seek seeks us more"
St. Teresa of Ávila
Modern Writings
Humans are bent and need unbending. That’s true. Humans have broken hearts that need remaking—and we cannot ourselves remake them. That’s true. And it’s even true, through a certain lens, that we don’t “deserve” to be loved by God: we didn’t earn nor can we demand God’s love.
But, but, but...When this sense of “being a sinner” and “being undeserving” decays into a soil of shame that grows all sorts of ugly fruit, then we know: something we’re believing isn’t true. When this happens, when we’re living from an identity of sin and shame, what’s the remedy? Remember: You were made by God and reflect God's nature. You have great worth because God is worthy and what God makes is good and valuable.
One takeaway for me is that shame is a signal. Our natural reaction to shame is to run and hide. If we respond, instead, by moving toward relationship with God and others, toward our true self in Christ rather than our false self—then shame is a helpful signal. It turns toxic when we respond with fixation, self-loathing, and isolation. A familiar story comes to mind of an early encounter between Peter and Jesus. Jesus gets into Peter’s boat and they push out from the shore. He finishes teaching the crowd and says to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Peter says he hasn’t caught a thing all night, but because Jesus says so, he’ll do it. The nets go down, the fish come up. Net-breaking, boat-sinking quantities of fish.
Suddenly Peter’s soul is naked and ashamed. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” Appropriate shame. Now watch how Jesus stops it from becoming toxic. He looks at Simon and says, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” Jesus didn’t let Peter dwell in that shame one second longer than necessary: Get up, Peter. Your sin doesn’t define you. I do. I choose you. You’re worth my love, and my love conquers your shame. I trust you to do my work. I’m not afraid of you messing it up. Let’s go love people together.
Brian Morykon, RENOVARE Weekly, 11/10/23
When productivity is our main way of overcoming self-doubt, we are extremely vulnerable to rejection and criticism and prone to inner anxiety and depression. Productivity can never give the deep sense of belonging we crave. The more we produce, the more we realize that successes and results cannot give us the experience of “at homeness.” In fact, our productivity reveals to us that we are driven by fear.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 9/12/20
Shame Is an Outside Voice: The voice of doubt, shame, and guilt blaring in our heads is not our voice. It is a voice we have been given by a society steeped in shame. It is the “outside voice.” Our authentic voice, our “inside voice,” is the voice of radical self-love!
Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology
We live, not just in an age of anxiety, but also in a time of significant shame. We all have that terrible feeling of a fundamental unworthiness. It takes many different forms, but somehow it appears in each of our lives, even if we do not acknowledge it.
Guilt, I am told, is about things we have done or not done, but our shame is about the primal emptiness of our very being. Shame is not about what we have done, but about who we are and who we are not. Guilt is a moral question. Shame—foundational shame, at least—has to do with our very being itself.
It is not resolved by changing behavior as much as by changing our very self-image, our alignment with the universe. Shame is not about what we do, but where we abide. God is always the initiator. Our very movements toward God are only because God has first moved toward us. People often seem to start with this premise: “If I behave correctly, I will one day see God clearly.”
Yet the biblical tradition says the exact opposite: If we see God clearly, we will behave in a good and human way. Our right behavior does not lead to our true being; our true being leads to right behavior. The greatest surprise is that sometimes a bad moral response results in the very collapsing of the ego that leads to our falling into the hands of the living God (see Hebrews 10:31).
Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder, p. 37–38, 40
Let’s distinguish between good guilt, bad guilt and shame. Good guilt is the necessary sense of conscience that tells me to take responsibility for my mistakes. Shame, however, causes me to feel bad about who I am as a person, apart from anything I’ve done or thought.
If I carry shame, I’ll see almost everything as something to feel guilty about. Thus, shame leads to bad, neurotic guilt, which doesn’t bring me to truth or to God but keeps me feeling defeated and inferior.
God never leads the soul by guilt or shame. Even appropriate guilt, which helps me, does not lead to deeper love of God. God leads the soul through seduction, invitation, self-exposure, unearned grace, deep forgiveness, and growing acceptance of me in my brokenness—which entices me away from my mistakes almost without me realizing it.
Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 214
If I view sin as woundedness, how will that change the way I deal with it?
Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 249
Only love and grace touch the soul, not fear, guilt, or shame.
Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 263
In a sense, our real Higher Power is often not God, but is instead our shame-based belief that our shortcomings and faults and brokenness have the authority to name who we are. It’s the idolatry of brokenness over the Love that loves us as invincibly precious in our brokenness. It isn’t just that I’m broken; I must also admit that I believe I am what’s wrong with me….
It’s such a powerful experience to be in the presence of someone who sees our brokenness and who sees through the brokenness to the invincible preciousness of our self in the midst of our brokenness. When we risk sharing what hurts the most in the presence of someone who will not invade us or abandon us, we can come upon within ourselves the pearl of great price, the invincible preciousness of ourselves in the midst of our brokenness.
Through a person’s unconditional positive regard for us, we can start to find our footing in an unconditional positive regard for ourselves. And that unconditional positive regard for ourselves is joining God in seeing who God knows us to be before the origins of the universe as invincibly precious, indestructible in God’s eyes.
James Finley, Mystical Sobriety
These shackles of shame exist only in our minds along with the streams of inner chatter they generate.
Martin Laird, Oceans of Light, p. 179
Shame is the emotional weapon that evil uses to corrupt our relationships with God and each other.
Curt Thompson in The Soul of Shame.
To thrive, we need connection with others. When shame pulls us away from others, it becomes more and more difficult for us to stay connected and to receive and offer love.
Pastor Ken Shigematsu, Now I Become Myself.
Guilt and shame are closely related, but not identical. “Guilt is, ‘I feel bad about what I did,’ and shame is, ‘I am bad because of what I did,’” says Sonya Norman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. Internalizing shame can be damaging to mental health and is linked to depression and low self-esteem. Shame is also associated with poor anger regulation and interpersonal problems, Hamama adds.
Jamie Ducharme, It's Time to Get Over 'COVID Shame', Time Magazine 2/22/22
Shame Barnacles and demands that you engage your heart, or it will take your heart.
Shame Faced article, Dr. Dan Allender