Subject: Is Shame on You?
Dealing with Fear
posted by Suneido on Thursday, June 5th 2008 @ 1:15 AM
Shame is an issue that most people have dealt with at one time or another in their life. We have often heard the term..."Shame on You!" Most people can flash back to a situation or experience where they felt shame. It is a feeling of wrongness of being. There is a hopelessness in shame because you can't stop being who you are. You can't change being you. You feel uneasy, lack of peace within yourself, or possibly even a sense of uncleanness when you have shame. It makes you want to isolate and hide out.
Often parents or authority figures bring shame on you as a child. There you are minding your own business, happy with the world, when all of a sudden, your parent suddenly expresses that what you are doing is not okay. But the message we get is that we are not okay. After all, why would our parents be  yelling at us in such an intense way if we were okay? So we internalize that there is something wrong with our identity. We can't fix that.
Many parents didn't have good role models for parenting and so when they interupt the child's world they use words like,"What is wrong with you?!" or "What's a matter with you, are you stupid?" This attacks us at our very being. It attacks our identity. The focus is on who the child is and not on what the child did thus attaching shame to our identity.
As the door is opened to the demonic, spirits of shame, rejection, self-hatred, self-bitterness, and self-rejection may easily come in.
Shame is different from guilt. Guilt is a feeling we get when we have done something wrong. We can usually fix guilt by repenting. But shame can't be repented for. It would be like repenting for being alive.
There are several rules that are established in a household that is based on shame.
1. Always remain in control of all your feelings and actions.
2. Make sure you are never wrong.Mistakes are not okay, only perfection is acceptable, being good means no mistakes and you better always be good.
3. If wrong, blame somebody. Often if parents get divorced or have any problems, it becomes the children's fault.
4. Deny anything going on inside. Don't have opinions,feelings,needs-be self-sufficient, Don't think, believe,have dreams or imaginations.
5. Don't Talk-always maintain secrecy.
6. Don't ever acknowledge you were wrong-don't be vulnerable.
7.Don't trust anyone-you can only trust yourself and sometimes you can't even trust yourself.
(Rules of the family from Craig Hill)
When you recieve shame you give authority to the person who is defining your identity.
Ask yourself and ask the Lord,
When did I start believing that I wasn't good enough?
When did I start believing that I had to be perfect to be acceptable?
When did I start believing that expressing feelings was not acceptable?
When did I start believing that I was bad?
When did I start believing that I was unlovable?
When did I start believing that I had to perform to be acceptable to God or to people?
When did I start believing that God didn't want to have me in His presence? or that I had to pay for my mistakes by being distant from God?
Am I able to be vulnerable with others? Why not?
Am I able to say no to people?
Is there anger or rage that comes out in unexpected times?
Why do I always have to be in control?
These are just some of the symptoms of shame. God wants to fee you from the shame. When we carry shame we have difficulty with relationships. God wants us to be reconciled to ourselves, to others, and to Him. Shame builds a wall that blocks love from flowing. We feel like we have to hide so others won't see what we believe is wrong with us.
God want to free us from the prison we are bound in and deliver us from the demonic that torments our souls.
We need to repent for giving the authority to define who we are over to people. There is a form of idolotry when we set people's opinions of us up over who God says we are. When what they say about us is valued and believed more than what God says about who we are and how we are valued then we are setting them up as having more authority than God.
We need to ask God to reveal who we really are, for him to define our identity.
We need to forgive those who have wounded us in words or actions. The wounds that have led us to believe we are worthless, valueless, unlovable, unwanted, useless, a mistake, unacceptable, unattractive, etc.
We need to command the demonic to leave us in the name of Jesus.
When Jesus was on the cross, he took our shame. We can exchange our shame for His glory. We are to reflect His glory in who we are.
May God open up our understanding to where we have allowed shame in and help us to exchange our shame for His glory. May He bring the healing that each of us needs so that we can walk knowing who we really are in Christ.
Blessings,
Judy
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