It’s the pain and fears in our lives that make us stay in our small stories. ~ John Eldredge
I’ve been studying shame for over 30 years. John Bradshaw’s book, “HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU” and Lewis Swedes’s “SHAME and GRACE” are my favorites. They have helped me to undetand myself.
We have had too many suicide this year with young men, considering our population has been shy of twenty thousand for decades. We’ve also been exposed to young girls taking and posting inappropriate pictures on internet. Self-destructive behaviors that come from fear of worthlessness – aka Toxic shame. Toxic shame says, “I didn’t do bad. I am bad.”
Lewes Smedes writes, “Unaccepting parents and their requirements are not specified. We must be fantastic abstractions. They don’t just tell us to do our arithmetic, wash our faces, and be kind to our dogs but we just have to be indefinably wonderful persons.” “Ke mo kedung e mo meduch a rengum eng kmal chetik ak mad elak a ngeral modengei me lou charm er kau a rechad.” Intense shaming that sounds encouraging. The undeserved shame.
We should NEVER over-estimate our worth to feel so worthless. It makes us a failure because we couldn’t get there. It’s an illusive dream that drives us to hide. It’s toxic shame that tells us to wear masks of “We’re fine!” We become anxious, deep in denial. Denial is like you’re trying to protect yourself by refusing to accept the truth about something that’s happening in your life. In some cases, initial short-term denial can be a good thing, giving you time to adjust to a painful or stressful issue. But avoiding it doesn’t make it go away (so we run to medicate ourselves with drugs of choice).
A young man writes, “I am toxic shame. It has converted me into a Schizophrenic. There no sure for this condition. Once toxic shame is not caught in time and converted back into healthy shame the person becomes Schizo. My life at best should be ended as soon as possible. I can offer the world nothing. And the world cannot benefit from my presence. I cannot even hold down a relationship with a woman. What else am I good for. Please someone shoot me dead.”
During my adolescent years, I believed I was bad, unfit, not belonging… a nobody’s child. I was toxic shame. Toxic shame means you’re defective at the very core of your being. I call toxic shame the Snake Pit of the soul. If not healed, toxic shame can lead to aggression, disorders, PTSD, and addiction. It generates low self-esteem, anxiety, irrational guilt aka self-condemnation, perfectionism, and codependency, (self love deficiency), limits our ability to enjoy satisfying relationships and professional success.
Toxic shame is self-sabotaging mechanic of the soul. It agitates, exaggerates and separates.
Silence the snake. Name the pain and tame it. Audit your emotions. Ask God to help you regulate your emotions.
Human issues are as old as the earth. “Nothing is new under the sun” chimes the old wise man. So why bother? We bother because ignorance is expensive. We cannot have a life if we live it based on bad information.
Remember me loving you. ❤