The Power of Shame

"If we didn't feel such shame about who we are, we wouldn't need anything better or higher to be or become."

Comments?

Comments

[Robert]

"shame about who we are" - not getting that one at all. Perhaps "shame about what we have done", but the quote doesn't seem to mean that. Sorry not much of a comment.

[Ana Dickinson]

Shame is what holds people from fulfilling a lot of things they are called to do in life. It also keeps people in fear from who they truly are and doesn't allow them to freely express their ideas and views. Most hide behind a curtain wanting to hide their shames and flaws, but I believe if we just accept you we are (all the good and the bad) we can become happy in our own skin and not care nor live by what others think or say about us. One is only happy when he accepts he cannot change those things that are wrong with them and accept that there is beauty in darkness.

[Ana Dickinson]

One of my favorite songs that gets me going in wanting to know God more is by Audioslave, "Show Me How to Live." It is simply amazing, it hits my soul, my every being every time I hear it. You should look it up.

[Ana Dickinson]

Also " Be Yourself" is another song I love from them.

[Me]

"Shame about who we are" - Think "the fall of man" and being "born in sin". Are these not, at their core, shame tactics?

[Me]

"Shame is what holds people from fulfilling a lot of things they are called to do in life." - Sometimes shame is appropriate. If I go into the girls' rooms and clean them because they are total slobs, you can bet that I'm going to use shame to get them to do it themselves.

What struck me about the quote was the idea of shaming people for who they are. If I shame my girls because I expect better of them, it is not the same thing as telling them that they are worthless.

[Robert]

Yes I agree, not all shame is bad, but indeed like just about anything else, it can be mis/abused. Even love itself can be used to manipulate.

The traditional Christian understanding of "the fall of man" does not speak to the WHO we are; mankind remains unchanged as the creature made in the image of God. (Hence we have the parable of the Prodigal Son, not the parable of the Prodigal Worthless One.) The teaching of being "born in sin" is a late invention, introduced by western traditions, and is altogether foreign to the ancient eastern Christian churches. This late theological distortion lends itself to shame tactics, and this is one very good reason to reject it.