“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Remember going to bed at night as a child, lying on your back, eyes squeezed shut, afraid of what might lurk in the silence of the darkness? Visions of what could be under our beds or behind our closet doors loomed in our minds.

Our fear of what could be there there kept us from looking to find out what actually was there.

This monster had no face and no name, just an unknown entity that seemed to haunt and taunt us and felt bigger than life.

It took a night light and our parents’ comforting words to help us see that we really had nothing to be afraid of.  That the only monster that existed was fear itself, spawned from a developing imagination.

Reality was really much less scary than we’d thought when we named it as Fear and learned what caused it (darkness) and what made it go away (light and insight).

Shame is like that “monster” under the bed.

Left unnamed, it hides in the dark corners of our life, haunting and taunting us.

As long as it is an unknown entity, Shame lurks like hovering black cloud over our lives.

But what if we shine the light on it and gain a little insight? Will it be a little less foreboding?

I want to call Shame out.  To define him by name and unmask who he actually is, where he originated, what his goals are for our lives, where he attacks and what we can do to defeat him.

Today, let’s keep it simple and just name and define him.

Let’s start off by saying what he isn’t.

He isn’t guilt.

Guilt says, “You did something wrong or didn’t do something right and need to correct your behavior.”

Shame says, “You ARE something wrong or NOT something right.”

Guilt guides us back to center course.

Shame stops us in our tracks and prevents us from moving forward.

In the simplest of terms, Christine Caine, in her book Unashamed says this: “Guilt is about my do. Shame is about my who.”

Brene Brown, the well-known speaker, author and blogger on the subject defines Shame like this:

“The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”  

The Free Dictionary describes it almost identically.

So there he is.  With a name.  With a definition.

A monster that maybe now we can face with a tiny bit more knowledge and a tiny bit less fear.

That’s enough for today.  Weekends are busy.

But if you have a chance, use this definition to check for areas where you think Shame might have snuck in and taken up residence in your soul.  Maybe because you didn’t know who or what he was.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about his origin.  He is very, very old.  But he’s changed very little after all this time…

And that should give us a new sense of hope in the healing that is ahead.

Hugs ’til then,

j