It's a Shame

Something I have noticed about most people is that on some level they are at least a little disappointed with themselves, a little ashamed of who they are. By this, I mean that they carry around an exaggerated, unwarranted belief that who they are is not quite acceptable, not quite up to par. When people allow me to peek behind their defenses, behind the walls most of us protect ourselves with, it is not unusual to get a glimpse of their belittling self-assessments. I wrote a blog about this once before, about the need to accept ourselves as "OK," and I have been thinking about it again lately. Is it inevitable that people should grapple with feelings of unworthiness?

Ted Bundy 

I am not talking about a person being ashamed for something they have actually done. If a person is a serial killer, or molests children, or tortures kittens, shame for those acts is a good thing. However, people who do those things are often incapable of shame or guilt, ironically, and so the people with the most to be ashamed about sometimes aren't.

Recently,  I have noticed how often people blame themselves, or some imagined or real shortcoming of theirs, for events over which they have little or no control.  If a person faces difficult circumstances of any kind, very often they react out the belief that some failing in them lead to their difficulty. For example, someone with a potentially fatal disease may wonder what they did to cause God to punish them in that way. What could they have done differently, or how could they have been different, that would have caused God to treat them more kindly? Such a reaction says, "This is happening to me because I'm not worthy."

I also firmly believe that living life listening to an internal monologue that emphasizes a person's shortcomings can lead to behaviors that only add to a person's negative self-image. People who feel unworthy often try to comfort themselves through addictive behaviors, such as compulsive eating or substance abuse. Addictive behaviors lead to more shame, which leads to a resolution to do better in the future, which often leads to failure, which leads to more shame, and more reason to believe the little voice inside that says, "You suck."

In that previous blog I linked to above, I explored the possible reasons people are so often unkind to themselves and so often hold themselves in low esteem.  I guess there are as many answers to that question as there are people.  It is a pervasive problem that affects most people to one degree or another.

Because it often difficult to see that we are doing this to ourselves, it also often hard to help ourselves out of negative self-talk and the feelings of unworthiness that go with it.  So, from the Free Advice Department, I offer the following:

• You don't need to be ashamed of the essence of who you are.  You are only one of you that God made. You have reason to be proud of you.
• Everyone has made mistakes, and everyone has areas in which they fall short.   Improve in areas where you can, and make reparations when it's possible.  Try to let the rest go.
• Allow yourself to forgive yourself for your failures.  Trust yourself to learn from them and to use them to do better in the future.  
• If something bad happens in your life, it is not because God is angry with you.  I promise, He loves you.  He does not want to torture you.
• Sometimes bad things just happen.  They do not happen to you because you deserve them.  

"Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."  -Lucille Ball