September 20, 2024

Let’s Get Better: Removing Shame, part 1

As humans, we are always in the process of healing and/or growing.

Whether we realize it or not.

Sometimes we are actively, searching for healing. Others we are just actively trying to make it through another day.

But we are even learning things in that.

As you know, I am someone who champions healing and growing. I love to get myself better, and help others get better.

As Craig Groeschel says “Everyone wins when the leader gets better.”

While, I am a long way from where I was, I still have a long way to go. I have much to do yet, as we all do.

Lately, I have been working through some shame issues.

Shame is kind of a killer in so many ways.

Shame keeps us from doing the things we really need to do. It can make us hide from what we know we should be doing. It makes us feel inadequate, less valued, and even worthless.

For years, I hid behind other people or things. I felt ashamed of who I was as a Mom, wife, daughter, niece.

Shame Defined:

Shame can be a good thing- It helps us to choose better, do better and want to uphold our own values. When we disappoint ourselves, we feel a desire to fix it and do better next time.

The dictionary says this about shame:

1 a : a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety

b : the susceptibility to such emotion

2 : a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute

3 a : something that brings censure or reproach

also : something to be regretted : PITY

b : a cause of feeling shame

It can also mean:

1. To bring shame to: disgrace

2. To put to shame by outdoing

3. To cause to feel shame

4. To force by causing to feel guilty

(“Shame.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shame. Accessed 19 Sep. 2024.)

All of these definitions are something we can all identify with. Who hasn’t felt at least some of these things over the years.

What I have been doing lately, is going back to the place where shame first got a hold of me and kept me from being who God called me to be.

What in the world does that even mean!??

Let me explain by telling you about one of my experiences with shame.

Aren’t they adorable??!! *free image from google.*

When I was a kid, in the years of about 6-10 or so, I loved to play baseball. Not the girl version of softball that I could play when I got older. I played baseball with my Dad and we played hardball. Baseball was my thing. I lived breathed and slept baseball in those days.

My Mom signed my sister and I up for boys hardball through the rec department in our town. Guess who had never had girls sign up for hardball baseball?

Yep…

So the coach wasn’t very happy with us but he let us play. He didn’t think we could do it so he treated us differently than the boys. I don’t recall the coaches names or much about any of them. I don’t recall any of the boys on my team. We played for years in that league, but I don’t recall any of the boys and only one coach. And that was only because he pitched a ball to me and hit me in the wrist. I couldn’t let him know it hurt, because that would make him think I was a weak girl and couldn’t play.

And I wanted to play!

Not me, but you get the idea. I didn’t have a pink helmet or a pink bat back then. There wasn’t such things and I would not have worn it!! *(Free google image)*

When I asked God for a time in my life when shame was stuck in me and limiting me, this memory came up.

I am going to stop with my story here and come back to it in the next post.. It ended up being a powerful encounter for me. I will tell you about it and how I cleared it from my life in my next post.

I would love to help you get shame out of your life too. Message me if you would like to try a session with me FREE. (My first session is a short, 20 min session where I explain the process and then demonstrate on you.) Click here to go to my scheduling page.

Blessings,

Vicki