Brenee Brown
"The truth will set you free."
Jesus
Free from what, exactly? And what truth? Well, let's talk about that. As a child growing up, did you ever hear "You should be ashamed of yourself!" Actually, I don't ever remember hearing that, but for some reason I felt it. Maybe some of you heard that a lot, and hearing that began to define how you felt about both yourself and others. Or maybe you were just ignored. like you didn't matter. Maybe you suffered some kind of abuse, and then felt that you were just a victim to other people, and maybe even to God. We have all suffered some trauma, either "Big T" trauma or "small t" trauma...we cannot escape it.
I wrote earlier about the re-discovery of my identity...who I am really am...and how that both changed my life and became foundational for the beginning of my recovery journey. It is critical. In Exodus, we read "And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am..." Wikipedia says this..."'I Am That I Am' is a common translation of the Hebrew phrase...also 'I am who I am,' 'I will become what I choose I choose to become,' 'I am what I am,' 'I will be what I will be,' 'I create whatever I create,' or 'I am the Existing One.'" Wow! If I believe that I am a powerful creator of my life, in partnership with God, then each of those description describes me as well. As I've said before, I created my own hell, and since my recovery began I've been working to create my own heaven. Each of us is endowed with our Father's DNA, and each of those definitions applies to us individually. How we fill in the blank after "I Am___" will determine how we see ourselves, how we see God, and how we see other people. How we fill in that blank will determine our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. "I Am__________?"
I lived for many, many years with a wrong view of myself. As we've discussed earlier, the root of any addiction is the false belief that "I'm not good enough." How do we learn that? Christian author Jamie Winship says that "The wrong view of ourselves comes from the things we've come to believe about ourselves, usually sourced or based in trauma, or traumatic situations, that inform our being throughout our lifetime." As we look at the world around us we can see clearly that so many of our social issues stem from false identity...we don't know who we really are. Unfortunately, singing "I Am a Child of God" just isn't good enough, and doesn't solve this for us...although I wish it was that easy. Our false identity always comes from external sources. Parents, teachers, church members, neighbors, friends, grandparents, or any number of people in our path. They might mean well...maybe...but we can die from a thousand cuts.
And it's not just what is told to us, it is also the struggle of life that can convince us we just can't cut it...that we're not good enough. False identity comes from some external source or experience, and then we subconsciously make an agreement with it. "Yep, I can't do that." "Yep, I'm a loser." "Yep, I'm an ungrateful son." "Yep, I'm not smart enough to get into college." "Yep, I'm ugly, and she'll tell me no." There is no end to the stories we make up as we agree with the false beliefs hoisted upon us by other people, our life experience, and the Enemy. He always wants us to believe we are much less than we are, and he does everything possible to confuse our identity. We then see everything in our life through the lens of these agreements, and it becomes the evidence that we were right all along. Not good enough.
Ultimately, we live out these agreements under the cloud of shame. Brenee Brown said..."Shame makes us feel unworthy of acceptance or belonging. We feel like we are somehow defective." Every addict lives in the hot mess of shame, but they are not the only ones. Every one of us has felt that burn of shame at some time in our life...it's inevitable. That first time we disobeyed mom or dad...Shame. That first bad grade in school...Shame. That first time we got turned down for a date, or didn't get invited to the party...Shame. Here's the crazy thing...if we continue living under this cloud and believe the lies we're telling ourselves, it becomes comfortable. We don't even know who we are anymore outside that cloud. And we kind of like it...
In the great book "Fighting Shadows" there is an awesome chapter about the "Shadow of Shame." Jeff and John write that shame is "a slimy shadow not only following us but trying to swallow us whole. It's a cloud that not only comes near to us but becomes us. Shame is the sense that there is fundamentally something wrong with me." The minute we give that sense power...by believing it...the poison begins to infect our heart and will, as they say, swallow us whole.
When we live in that shame, we hide. We isolate. We separate from those we love the most...if not physically, but certainly spiritually and emotionally. We separate ourselves from God, and sometimes we just run from Him. "We hide in the shadows of shame. We feel it deeply and begin to retreat in our hearts, minds, and emotions...Shame convinces us our survival depends on hiding imperfections, weaknesses, and embarrassing parts of ourselves. Under the massive pressure of shame, our natural tendency is to hide, deflect, distract - anything to escape the feeling that we're unworthy, ugly, or bad."
Shame it the greatest tool of the Enemy because it destroys our identity and separates us from who we really are.
More Brenee Brown..."If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive." Secrecy, silence, and judgment...the perfect ingredients for living in addiction. Don't tell anyone. If they knew the "real" me, they'd hate me. Keep my true feelings and my acting out quiet. I'm an embarrassment to my spouse, my family, my church, and to myself. I'm always judging myself...loser, addict, idiot. I should be able to stop this on my own, but I can't. I'm going to hell, but I just don't care anymore. (This thought rattled around in my head for years). Once again, shame is the inability to separate my actions from my identity. Of course it is not only addicts who struggle with these feelings of brokenness and hopelessness, but many of us feel this deeply...not smart enough, not righteous enough, not beautiful enough, not talented enough, and just not enough. With our addiction to social media today, it's almost impossible to not live in the cesspool of comparison...not being enough and not doing enough. Shame.
And "shame can get very loud. It feels like real pain. And what do we do with pain? We medicate." So we can see why shame and any kind of addiction go hand in hand, and always a "catch 22." Feel shame (for whatever reason)...act out. Act out...feel more shame. Feel shame...act out. Act out...feel more shame. This will go on and on and on and on and on.
So what to do? Brenee says empathy will kill the shame. Light will kill the shame. Love will kill the shame. And above all else, Jesus will kill the shame. When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Him, did He shame her? Did He ask her what the heck she was thinking!? Did He point her out as a bad example for everyone? Did He say "you should be ashamed of yourself?" We all know the story...of course He did none of these. He forgave her, and simply told her to "go and sin no more." That's it. He loved her. He had empathy for her. He did not judge her, even though He is the ONLY One who CAN judge. Simple. Loving. Kind. And He is still that way...
Elizabeth Oldfield wrote..."My worst choices are not my identity. I don't have to move from 'I did a bad thing' to 'I am a bad person'...I don't need to hide it or explain it away." Maybe this is the truth that Jesus was talking about...that WE ARE NOT WHAT WE DO. As Amy said on the Unashamed Unafraid podcast, "Our worth is set. Everything else is just experience." That is THE TRUTH... So as we let go of expectations, and as we stop comparing, we really can be free.
Shame, and the Enemy, not only focus on our identity, but also on our behaviors. Whenever we make a mistake, that voice in our head tells us we're bad, or stupid, or unloveable. Whenever we make a poor choice...call it sin...they tell us we are unredeemable and cannot be saved. We tell ourselves God is disappointed in us, cannot possibly love us, and has probably already given up on us. But...Love does not focus on behavior. Love does not demean us or tell us we're worthless. Love's focus is always on our heart. In his book "Is God Disappointed In Me?" Kurt Francum writes..."Instead of these behavior-focused scripted answers, the correct answer is always, We must first realize we are loved and completely accepted by Jesus Christ. Once we accept his grace in that way, we then have the momentum to move toward behaviors - not because we are trying to earn anything, but because we are becoming something...The more love and acceptance we truly feel from God, the more desire we will have to improve our behaviors." Whenever we focus on behavior, shame will get us stuck there. Only Grace, and the truth of who we are, will set us free.
Kurt continues..."our behaviors will never be stronger than the accepting grace of Jesus Christ. He will always pull us back to His love to remind us that behaviors don't define us." But...Elizabeth Oldfield reminds us that "My choices matter. There is dignity in being responsible for my actions, even while acknowledging the systems and other people who may have made my mistakes more likely." So, yes, our choices are important, but they become a reflection of who we are becoming. The consequences of sin...of poor choices...are always relational. How we feel about ourselves, God, and other people will always show up in what we do, and when we choose behaviors that fall outside God's boundaries, we are out of alignment with Him, with our true selves, and with other people. As we allow ourselves to stay within those boundaries, we become something new, with a changed heart, and we find that our lives flow better. Life's difficulties just are not as difficult. Our relationships with people become different, because we're not out to get something from them, but we are out to love and serve them...expecting nothing in return. We let go of fear.
Our ability to stand back, look at what we did (or didn't do), acknowledge it, be open and share it with someone else. forgive ourself and ask forgiveness, and then just keep going forward...or "lifewards" as Elizabeth Oldfield describes it...looks a lot like recovery. When we do step out of alignment, (John 15:4-10), all we can do is stay aware, recognize it, make the necessary changes, and get back into alignment. In verse 11, Jesus explains our reason for wanting to live in alignment with Him - "That your joy may be full." And joy is always the opposite of shame...
As I mentioned before, it's not necessarily an easy task to let go of our shame. Sometimes...and for many of us...those feelings of victimhood, helplessness, unworthiness, and isolation are all we know, and they feel comfortable. Some people wear them as some kind of badge of honor...they become their identity. But why would we want to be miserable all the time? Maybe we just don't know a different way to be, and misery just feels like home. The fear of the Light...of honesty, or vulnerability, of anything different...keeps us there. That fear can feel so real, but at some point the pain of shame becomes worse than the fear of truth, and we get to re-evaluate and begin at the beginning..."What desirest thou?" (1 Nephi 11:2) What do we really want? And then, the second question..."What are we willing to do to get it?" How deep are we willing to dig? How hard are we willing to work?
I do know this...once we get a taste of God's Grace, and feel even a sliver of His Love, we will be able to move into the Light. We will be able to let go of our shame. It might require some professional therapy, life coaching, ecclesiastical support, 12 step meetings, podcasts, lots of study and prayer, but we will not want to go back to the shame and hiding and pretending and pain and darkness. The Light feels SO good and is worth any effort.
Paul wrote in chapter four of Hebrews, "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." I love that! Boldly! That's taking ownership. That's a change of heart. That's joy. That's confidence, humility, meekness, strength, honesty, peace, connection, love, and light. And more! But none of these things will ever be found under the cloud of shame...
To finish, the lyrics to the awesome song by Megan Woods, called, simply, "The Truth..."
"How many times can you hear the same lie, before you start to believe it?
The enemy keeps whispering to me, I swear these days it's all I'm hearing.
I used to know who I was,
Now I look in the mirror and I'm not so sure.
Lord, I don't wanna listen to the lies anymore.
When I feel there's so much noise livin' rent-free in my head,
Heaven finds me in a still small voice, and it sounds like grace instead.
I know who I am, because I know who You are,
And I hold your truth inside my heart.
I know the lies are always gonna try and find me,
But I've never been so sure...
The truth is I am my Father's child.
I make Him proud and I make Him smile.
I was made in the image of a perfect King,
He looks at me and wouldn't change a thing.
The truth is I am truly loved by a God who's good when I'm not good enough.
I don't belong to the lies, I belong to You.
And that's the truth."
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