Reset Your Stress Response With ScriptureНамуна

Reset from Shame

I don’t think there’s a feeling that has disrupted my emotional journey and my relationship with God more than the feeling of shame. As a trauma survivor, I experienced shame as an unfortunate consequence of trying to reframe scenarios that were out of my control.

I went through a handful of traumatic events in late adolescence, when my mental state was at its lowest point and I was abusing alcohol while taking psychiatric medications. I created an identity out of my experiences and labeled myself broken, unworthy of love or care. Shame is a known liar, and shame told me that my experiences made me a villain—instead of a victim. It’s all my fault. I’m a terrible person, the worst of the worst.

Shame is a pit many of us enter when stress becomes so overwhelming that we don’t know how to manage it. We point our fingers back at ourselves, declaring that we’ll never have it together, we can’t do a single thing well, and we’ll never measure up to the expectations we set for ourselves. Shame locks us into “freeze mode,” a type of paralysis that ruptures our connections with ourselves, with others, and most importantly, with the God who loves us. The biggest lie shame tells us is that we are a long way off from God’s healing embrace.

The story of the prodigal son gives us a beautiful picture of how God welcomes us into his arms, even when we feel like we’re “a long way off,” unworthy of his love or care. In fact, Scripture tells us that after the son blew through his inheritance and ended up destitute, he returned home to the father he’d been in such a hurry to run away from. Even though the son felt that he was unworthy of fatherly love and kindness, his father saw him “while he was still a long way off . . . and ran and embraced him” (Luke 15:20).

I take great comfort in the fact that I have a heavenly Father who feels compassion for me, delights in me, and wants to tend to my deepest hurts. He welcomes me just as I am. I hope today’s passages speak to your heart and silence the shame spiral—no matter how far off you feel.