Story Matters Podcast
In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss the intersection between theology and psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their particular stories have shaped them.
Story Matters Podcast
27. Unmasking Shame: The Hidden Driver of Our Actions
What makes trauma trauma? The shame we never talk about. Shame shapes our lives far more profoundly than most of us realize. While we typically think of shame as something that follows our mistakes, what if it's actually driving our behaviors from behind the scenes?
In this eye-opening first episode of our shame series, Ryan and Emily explore how shame operates as an underlying force in human experience. Drawing from theological insights, psychology, and their work with clients, they offer a fresh perspective on an emotion that often hides in plain sight.
There are four book references: “Soul of Shame” by Dr. Curt Thompson, “Healing the Shame That Binds Us” and "Homecoming" by John Bradshaw and “Drama of the Gifted Child” by Alice Miller
This discussion helps explain why we respond to feelings of inadequacy with behaviors meant to protect us—our personal "fig leaves" that temporarily cover our vulnerability but don't heal the root issue.
Whether you're struggling with persistent feelings of not being enough, trying to break unhealthy patterns that have led to "success", or simply curious about what drives human behavior, this episode provides compassionate insights and practical questions to begin identifying shame's influence in your own story.
Welcome to the Story Matters Podcast. I'm Ryan Baker.
Speaker 2:And I'm Emily Baker.
Speaker 1:We believe people grow and heal through understanding how our stories are rooted in God's redemptive story.
Speaker 2:We hope our conversations encourage you to engage your story and the world around you with a new lens.
Speaker 1:We're glad you're here.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's season three here at Story Matters Podcast. We are so excited that you are listening. If this is your first time to tune in, you can just jump right in with us because we're going to start a new series today. If you have been with us through season one and two, thank you so much. We've been blown away by the feedback and the encouragement that these conversations actually are helping people. It was kind of a risk we took to push record on some of these, and so, thank you, we love to hear from you.
Speaker 2:If you ever want to reach out, there's an easy button that says send us a text in our podcast show notes. We would love to hear from you because we are going to be preparing a Q&A episode later in this season. But we want to jump into a topic that we have been chewing on for quite a while. In fact, ryan, I feel like every episode of season one and two you were like okay, can we do it now? And I haven't really known how to get my head around it. But here we go, this is your topic.
Speaker 1:Introduce it Well, I just feel it the most.
Speaker 2:No, Just kidding, we all do yeah.
Speaker 1:So the topic we're going to pick up, we're actually going to do a series on shame and I know that's why you've been like ooh, that's a downer, but it's really important and I recognize there are really great resources out there and yet one of those resources the author, Kurt Thompson, has even said shame has a way of disappearing back into the woodwork, and I believe both he's speaking culturally like it kind of goes up and then it disappears. But also personally I noticed like oh, I've read the Soul of Shame or Brene Brown or whomever, and then it kind of fades again. And I think what's important and what we're noticing in our work is how central shame is to the stories of trauma and to the shaping of our lives for all of us, for all of our clients, for you and I, yeah. So I'm really excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just want to say every time we push record I have this internal and maybe I've said it before but like, oh man, we're going to talk about some heavy stuff and yet I want to be lighthearted and I want to be fun and we talk about some pretty hard topics on our episodes. But I do want to encourage you. This is not a downer, I believe when we have really unpacked shame with the people we work with and our groups and individually, it really frees people and there does become a lightness that when we get to name and shine light into dark places, it does open up such joy. And so I want to encourage you that, even though we talk about some hard things, if you'll stay tuned and as you listen, maybe for you getting to discuss them with friends or a spouse, I think, can be really a freeing experience.
Speaker 1:It's eye-opening. I mean, this is why people love Enneagram we love to find out what makes us tick. Or even sometimes people get a diagnosis and it's not pleasant, but they go. At least I know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, Ryan, let's jump in. You have inspired me. Thankfully, you're a verbal processor and you read a lot, so I feel like I get to read a lot, but you have really taken a deep dive on the subject of shame. I know for over a decade just really getting your mind around. What is it and how do we see it in our lives on a daily basis? So give us a little bit about your journey.
Speaker 1:Well, I just remember there's a book by Dick Kyes that we read, I remember, in seminary so this is 2002, called Beyond Identity, and he was the director of the Libri, the one in Boston. But just he defined shame. In our culture the words guilt and shame have a lot of overlap and often are interchangeable. But what he explained I've seen it since then is that guilt is when an action is wrong and shame is when we feel we are wrong or we've essentially become defined by the action. And so that was helpful, right Like when the news is covering a politician and they told a lie. You know they're a liar, you know you'll have this kind of like naming. So that's really what he's getting at.
Speaker 1:But I think the book that probably really helped me the most was Kurt Thompson's Soul of Shame, and I just wanted to read. His definition is the deep sense that who I am is not enough, not lovable, not worthy, not acceptable. And then in a lecture of his I heard he introduced me to a man who's now deceased named David Bradshaw, and he actually might be credited for bringing shame to the forefront back in the nineties. He actually went on to do a PBS series on it, and that book's called Healing the Shame that Binds you. Here's his definition the internal experience of being under an ongoing judgmental gaze, a sense that I am constantly being evaluated and found lacking.
Speaker 2:I love that. That nailed it for me. Just that constant like are you good enough?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I highly recommend his books Homecoming and the one I mentioned. And then Alice Miller, in her drama of the Gifted Child, says shame is a feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with me, often hidden beneath a mask of compliance or grandiosity. And we're going to unpack her in a few episodes.
Speaker 2:And we'll have those books and authors in our show notes, because these have been pivotal in your journey with understanding shame.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it's something that I think you and I would attest that I mean, I'll just speak for myself. When I meet with clients, it doesn't take very long for just that sense of like why do I have so much self-contempt, which I'm using self-contempt as sort of an offshoot of shame? It's similar, if not an overlap, and we just carry that fundamental, deep sense of that something is wrong with us.
Speaker 2:And for others. I think it takes a little bit of scratching through the surface of I am good enough. There's a bit of the like the grandiosity that you mentioned just now with Alice Miller and we're going to get into that in another episode but there's this grandiosity that covers up our shame and that can be a hard surface to get through and I think that can often look like others' contempt. But either way, we're working really hard not to feel.
Speaker 1:That's a great point.
Speaker 1:Just to give maybe a commercial for it, but there are cycles and if we're in a performative cycle, maybe you've been a performer for some time, maybe it's years where you get things done, you're effective, you're firing on all cylinders. What Miller might say think of the older brother and the prodigal son story. Shame is still driving that and the burden will be on you, emily and myself, to prove that. If someone disagrees, we'll go there through this series. But just kind of put a pin in that I'm not saying that when we're doing godly things it's from shame, but what I am saying is there's a lot of people who seemingly have it together, who either are aware of and hiding their shame, or may just not be aware of any of it at all.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think I brought that up because, as you and I have talked through shame, we have two pretty different stories and approaches, and so I think we can, at least if we were to divide everyone into two groups and we've said this before like there's self-contempt, others' contempt, but I think I want to always represent the people that you are highly effective. Someone looked at me and said, man, you get crap done, and it lit me up like yeah, I do. I'm the person that's going to have a hard facade and shell to break through to realize that's my working hard, to feel like. I'm the person that's going to have a hard facade and shell to break through, to realize that's my working hard, to feel like I'm enough.
Speaker 1:Right, you are very productive and I feel like I come in with just a deep sense of you know I'm not capable Like I have all these goals, but shame seems to be right there getting a lot of victory over my life and that's why I think, on one hand, I go through life, I seem joyful, but I'm aware, and I think reading about this helped me understand and put into words this sense of oh, like I do feel there's a flaw and let me just say, as we think about our own personal story, that flaw, if you feel what I'm feeling or if you approach life as Emily was suggesting, it really does stem from, I think, our family of origin, what role we played.
Speaker 2:Or what was valued. You know like productivity is your identity, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot. I want to give an example of shame. That just a generic one that we've all had. I want to give two. You're driving down the road and you're in your car minding your own business. Maybe you're singing crazy loud or you're picking your nose you can choose listener but all of a sudden you're aware the person in the car next to you sees you and you feel busted, you know, embarrassed. The second one is when you trip. If you're walking, I mean just the smallest graze of the big toe on the carpet and you just stumble for just a moment, no big deal, and you gather yourself and you keep in stride but you look around like, oh my gosh, maybe I'm alone on this, but like, what's wrong with me? I can't even walk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you're not alone. I think we all have that Like I'm okay that I did it unless I was seen. What I hear you saying in these captured on camera type moments is that shame really is felt relationally Like we do feel shame when we're by ourselves. We have to pay attention to our thought life, but shame is intensified. Okay, I'm now at risk in my community.
Speaker 1:So yes, and we heard from Bradshaw that it has evaluation. We're going to spend time on that later. But the point you're making about relational is who's evaluating? Like there has to be a person or another entity when you trip or when you're caught in your car, or whatever the scenario. If someone saw you, what do they think?
Speaker 2:Well, this, is interesting because we're kind of taking two examples right out of the gate that aren't sin, because we always think shame comes after we sin. But as you're saying this, I remember we put on our Story Matters Instagram this quote shame is relational. We feel it in the absence of love, so we're not feeling love from whoever watched us or the person that we realized saw us was actually our best friend and we could laugh about it. There's no shame, so there's something about being evaluated versus feeling loved and known.
Speaker 1:Where we're heading is that shame is a disposition that we have. So if you are a human being after the fall, there's a part of you that questions your goodness, questions your value, your worth, especially in relationship to God, to the Trinity, but also to others Right, and so when you trip, it's not that the incident is what makes me feel shame. It just reveals what I'm already feeling, in other words, what we're going to try to emphasize in this episode and going forward. Shame is just not how we feel after we sin, but it's how we feel before we sin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's huge. But just real quick, what you just said about these little silly examples we just gave, that they actually reveal something bigger. This is kind of the operating system of our bodies that when something silly does happen, if we can pay attention to it and actually name the deeper sense of shame, we can be so free, because oftentimes we'll do something like the picking the nose or something and an hour later we still feel so rotten but we have no idea, we couldn't capture that as, oh, I felt shame.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, but say it again you just said something that felt really big.
Speaker 1:Well, just to be clear, I think most of the time when shame is discussed especially even in the creation account or the early chapters of Genesis it's the first time most people think of it is when Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover themselves. So the traditional thought would be that Adam and Eve sinned. They took the bait. Pride came before the fall. Now the fall of man has happened. Now they have sin reigning in their bodies. It's devastating. They now recognize they are naked, both in a physical sense, but in a real emotional, spiritual sense. They feel vulnerable and seen. They hide from God who's walking in the cool of the day, and they cover themselves with fig leaves.
Speaker 1:But what we don't I don't think talk about enough yet it's right in the story is that shame is actually the impotence for the sin. So if you think about the story in the garden which is where we're going to look at that story in Genesis 3, listen closely to the serpent's words. Now most of us have this flannel graph notion that Eve is doing her thing, adam is like right next to her and the serpent just pops up, but somehow Adam doesn't hear the serpent. It's more likely that there is a lot of time passing in these stories in Genesis. Who knows if Adam's off being the zoologist that he was. We don't know what's going on, but the question is how did that begin? Now, adam and Eve have no sin. Sin in a very real sense doesn't exist at all in humanity or the garden. But we also know the serpent who is, in some crazy way is Satan slithered to Eve and says did God really say First of all, she didn't freak out that an animal was speaking to them.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So it kind of feels like Narnia is giving us a glimpse of like oh, before the fall there was community within animals and humans.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which I think sets the scene that Adam and Eve are the only two humans. But there's a community and that's the relational. Like she didn't say, why are you talking to me? This is normal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when you come to this in Genesis, we don't know how long the conversation, if this is their first conversation. Has there been a series? Do they sit down for tea for the last couple of years? We don't know. But the serpent does show up and just the way the writer tells us what happens, did God really say, just sit with that for a minute?
Speaker 2:Even the way verse one says that the serpent was more crafty. I think we have enough data to know he probably did sit down with her multiple days and formed a relationship. And then finally one day. So let me ask you a question Did God really say Because? Let me let you in on the inside scoop.
Speaker 1:And here's our challenge when you take the scripture and begin to make interpretations, evaluations, you want to make sure we're not reading back into the text, but it does seem very clear that, as you just said, he's crafty and he opens up this discussion. Did God really say, to which she gives an answer? And her answer is not bad. But I think, if you're honest listener, I would feel if someone came up to me and started trying to put division between my wife and I, or a son or a boss or anybody in me that's the kind of way you know you would speak like. Are you and your wife happy? Yeah, whether there's truth or not, your body feels suspicion, feels tense.
Speaker 1:And here they are, in the garden. There was never a hint, not even a breeze of sin, and so at that moment they only have, in my estimation, two options. One is to do what they did, to kind of continue down that line of thinking feel shame. Now, the shame did not come from within them, so it wasn't from the fall, it came from outside in, through the serpent. But then they essentially codified that by eating the fruit. And when they ate the fruit, that is the grandiosity or the pride of. I'm going to remove this feeling. I'm going to take matters into my own hands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think that the tone I feel that he even first takes with her is really like the doubt. But then, when she gives the pretty good answer, he flat out lies to her and says it's not true. Well, at that point and this is just me as a fallen human now thinking, oh, the second I hear that doubt has entered in and I don't like feeling confused, young, not sure is God trustworthy, and that right there feels like shame, like openness, I don't want to feel weak. So she quickly evaluates and was like yeah, I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I guess I need to like take the matters into my own hands, but that pride, like you just said, feels like a response to an internal weakness that she wants to cover up.
Speaker 1:And to close the loop of the other option. It's just, I think, adam and Eve could have gone to the Father, gone to the Triune God who walks in the cool of the day, and visit and say you know, we heard something, we need to talk.
Speaker 2:And his lie made her feel alone, like she needed to make a decision, and I think that's where a lot of us in our origin stories, our father or whoever was taking care of us, didn't feel trustworthy, and so there's just an internal doubt.
Speaker 1:And so what we're getting at is now, after the fall. They've eaten the fruit, they've experienced the separation and they feel naked. And I've shared some of these thoughts with people and I've seen people scratching their head and, listener, you may be scratching your head Like I don't know, and in the past I've sort of even said it a little bit more provocatively, like you know, the first sin is not pride, it's shame, and that makes people really scratch their head because, theologically, augustine and so many others have said, no, it's pride, but what's being said is the first human sin is that? But the first presence of evil, right, this, the aroma of the vandalism of Shalom, is the shame. I love that and to that I would just say, interestingly, how Adam and Eve explained to someone what it was like before the fall. You know what was it like in the garden? Tell us everything. And the phrase is we were naked and unashamed.
Speaker 2:We were naked and what's the word for it. There's no word for it. Unshamed.
Speaker 1:You know, that thing we feel now.
Speaker 2:Every day all the time. Not that, it was not, Not that. And so that tells you. What is that?
Speaker 1:even like that tells you of two things it tells you of the pervasiveness of shame after the fall and the complete absence of any hint of that before setting the heart free is really we're moving into the space of being set free from evaluation and shame, the sense of being less, the sense of not being enough all of those things is what we're freed from in the gospel.
Speaker 2:Let's not miss the blame shifting that exists right out of the gate of shame, because blame shifting is a pretty big thing in our lives. I would say I'm way worse at it, but if you just pay attention to conversations that you have or people that you overhear, or just in the media, the blame shifting is always happening. And what is that? Are we just trying to find answers? Are we really just wanting to make the world a better place and finding who to blame? I think that's in the presence of shame we start pointing to anyone but us because we can't feel like, don't make me feel this.
Speaker 1:I think that's so true and I think what I hear you saying as well is the theme that shame does not show up as shame. In fact, it's pretty much hidden. You know, whether you want to compare it to the wind, you can't see it. But, like the blame shift, is the response right? And what we've been saying is sin is a response to shame. Often I want to be careful how I say that, but remember, shame creates the problem. The problem is I'm not enough. Then what we typically do is we try to medicate that, either by going after improvement of some kind, so through some form of I'm going to be better, I'm going to look better, I'm going to do whatever, I'm going to fix it, I want to feel better. Those are not of themselves sin, but we may choose avenues that are not good for us, or we may just numb to the shame. But what I want to say is that's going to feel new for a lot of you.
Speaker 1:Most of the time, especially in the evangelical world, we begin in our dissection of sin with the action. We may occasionally think of the temptation. We're rarely addressing the fact that first of all, before it, there usually is some form of shame, something that made you feel I think you shared this earlier we feel small. We feel small, we feel weak. So often what we're doing then is we're trying to address that feeling, but we've not even named it, we don't even know it was there. It's just the first thing that you see is the actual sin or behavior. So, you know, maybe you shout, you know, because someone gave you a look, and you later realize I shouldn't have raised my voice. True, but we rarely go. You know what? When that person looked at me, Well, we often blame shift.
Speaker 2:I yelled because you made me mad, right? I feel like blame shifting is actually like the little flag that pops up to go. There's something here the beeping of the metal detector.
Speaker 1:Well, you have two schools of thought right Like one is no, I did it. Don schools of thought right Like one is no, I did it. Don't even consider that there was an outside influence, it's 100% me. I was basically standing in the Garden of Eden and then I just yelled at you or the other side could be I did something, but I'll be honest, you caused it. Well, what if there is a third way? The third way is when you gave me that look or made a passive, aggressive comment, and then my body, which carries a lifetime of wounds, made me feel instantly limbically abandoned alone. I took matters into my own hand and, yes, I chose that and I'm to blame. I mean, I can take full culpability, but in my healing it's very important and I would say, critical, to name. Where is that coming from? What was that silent whisper that I didn't even pay attention to? If we don't do that, we will not heal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you just stumbled into one of our kind of go-to comments when people say what do you all do? The church is really good about talking about our sin and the therapeutic world is great about talking about what's been done to sin and the therapeutic world is great about talking about what's been done to you. And the third way that you just described is with many of the Psalms, but basically the overarching theme of scripture is the sin and sorrow. Like there have been things done to us. Even being born into a broken world is something being done to us. I mean, immediately there is a sin nature. So we have had things happen to our bodies and our lives and our stories that we cannot just say is only our sin.
Speaker 2:So I think this is why this episode, one of our shame series, is really important to name that we see this as a pervasive miss. Like people are not seeing that there's a reason behind, like you just mentioned, limbic. There's something going on underneath the surface we would call the roots of a tree, and if we keep whacking at the branches of our behavior, branches of our sin, we aren't going to know how to stop it from growing or stop it from continuing. So this is what this is we're saying, and I want to repeat what you said that shame is not just how we feel after we sin. That's just really important to think through and at least ponder. Even if you guys don't agree with us, we believe that there's often something before we sin that is the residue of shame living in our bodies.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the reason this resonates so much is after reading Thompson, the Soul of Shame, and feeling like I was getting a pretty good handle on it and it was doing a lot of work for me. I remember reading the Psalms and how often the psalmist says let me not be put to shame. And I remember the first time I read that, after having read and understood the Soul of Shame, thinking, oh, that must be something different in the Hebrew, because what we're being told or what we are under the soul of shame. Thinking, oh, that must be something different in the Hebrew. Like because what we're being told or what we are under the impression of is shame, is simply my sense of being less or not enough, often communicated to me by another, whether directly or indirectly. That's sort of the working definition, right, and I think most of us can agree. And often it's something that came from repeated treatment.
Speaker 1:But what we're now recognizing is the psalmist has this fear of abandonment. God, let me not be put to shame. I'm afraid that if I'm not taking matters into my hand, then I'm relying on you. You know, you often see, you're my shield, my resting place, my refuge. But I'm taking a risk. Let this not backfire, let me not be put out of community and, of course, in the Old Testament, being put outside of the community is often like the punishment right, and so I think what I'm asking is, as listeners, that you guys would join us in really slowing down and realizing, if you just and you said this, emily about the branches and going back to the roots, can we pay attention to.
Speaker 1:What am I afraid of, like, what's the fear behind the thing? There's something about a community, a tribe, expunging itself of someone with joy and glee, and we see this in so many places where, whether it's your church, community, spiritual abuse, family, maybe you're the black sheep we have these phrases, the scapegoat, et cetera, showing that number one, our biggest fear is being put to shame. And number two, it happens. It happens and I think so much of the way we craft our days and our lives and our actions and behavior. If you're really honest and you can go back to certain episodes, like the non-playable character episode or loyalty structures. We're trying to stay inside the group, like we're wanting to stay safe.
Speaker 2:Don't let me be cast out Like don't right, don't put me out of this community.
Speaker 1:And let me add so many of the definitions of shame are like it's when you feel after doing something wrong that you're bad, and what we're saying over and over is no, it's when the community determines you're bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the evaluation, you brought that up.
Speaker 1:So the relational evaluation, whether by God or the community.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, because that's the definition that I loved of David Bradshaw is that it's the feeling of being evaluated. Some of you have maybe heard me talk about the parts of the brain the amygdala am I safe? The middle portions am I loved? Which is do I belong? And then can I learn, the prefrontal cortex. This is talked about a lot in the embodied gospel episode and then Selah.
Speaker 2:One thing I have found fascinating in the work we've done in the past several years is about reading out loud in a classroom setting. People have stories of trauma that they've brought, they've written their stories and it's about reading out loud. I guess I just didn't know how common that was. Well, I was interacting with one of my clients and I said that to her. I said it's really surprising and she said actually she had read and I've not gone to fact check this but she said I've read a study like psychology today or something, actually interviewed like 5000 people and had people list their biggest fears and the fear of reading out loud actually won over the fear of death. And just take that in for a second. The essence of that is, as a child and maybe even into my adulthood, the fear of being laughed at of stumbling over my words, of being seen as weak, as being seen as stupid, and then therefore cast out or made fun of or gossiped about.
Speaker 2:Mocked, mocked, absolutely. That is a portion of my brain that is in neck to neck competition with which one's going to set me into dysregulation faster, fear of death or fear of being cast out.
Speaker 1:We've got to give it more credit right and just I'm trying to put on my statistical brain here a little. I don't think someone's saying man, if I had to choose between dying or eating out loud, I may take death.
Speaker 1:No, they're just saying the fear that comes up, I think, as they look at a list. But it's profound, because you're looking at a list and on that list you see that one option is the fear of death and you could check that first. But then you see reading out loud and that just draws your attention. Right Now. Obviously, I would prefer to read out loud.
Speaker 2:My point is this we need to give shame more credibility in driving our actions. If I had to summarize this entire episode, ryan, you made a comment the other day and I said something about the Christian culture, wanting it to be more trauma-informed, and I love what you said. Do you remember what you said?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what makes trauma trauma is the presence of shame.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you said it like this Shame is what makes trauma trauma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what I was trying to get at is that the word sin, the vandalism of shalom in the word trauma I mean, have so much overlap. But trauma, first of all, is usually when something is done to us, right, something happens to us and shame is involved. The marring of our, you know, and shame is involved, the marring of our, you know, the sense of being.
Speaker 2:Like how we view ourselves. Yeah, it shatters us, and so shame or credibility that if we could be shame-informed Christians, I think there's a lot of people in our camp that would say we need to be trauma-informed. There's some people that think that's too much of a buzzword, it's too overly talked about Like we're all overreacting. This may be for you, listener. You may be in the camp of like kind of rolling your eyes at trauma. Can we become shame-informed, informed? Shame informed would help you understand what you're doing all the time to cover the feeling of not being enough.
Speaker 1:That's well said, and I want to use that to segue into kind of our thoughts about why this matters. I think it's probably obvious by now. Maybe just for review. What we have said is that when we are young in our family of origin and someone does something of harm, anything that's not shalom forces us to respond. What you're doing is you're responding with fig leaves, right, and I think you're the one in the way that says, like what's your fig leaf of choice? It's you grab something and you cover. You know you miss a basketball shot and someone laughs at you. So you spend the night shooting a million shots and that'll never happen again. That's a vow, right? Someone calls you a name or names you even a good thing, Like you're so responsible. Thank you, sweetie, and that's an agreement.
Speaker 1:So vows and agreements we talk about loyalty structures, soul ties. These are words that are also synonymous with protectors. We've talked about protectors, and all of that is basically saying, when shame comes, these are the fig leaves of choice. And so the question, listener, then for you is all right. First of all, do you buy into the idea that shame is not just the byproduct of your sin or your mistakes, but actually shame, an underlying sense of shame is preceding the behaviors which you find maladaptive, and if you can buy into that and we'd like to finish with just a few questions- yeah.
Speaker 2:So going back to your origin story, where in your story did you feel weak, small and need to kind of prove yourself? And I think another way to say that would be like where in your story did you feel the need to cover up and hide that feeling right Of being less than what part of yourself are you still trying to keep hidden?
Speaker 1:What you're asking would be do you have a story listener where you can see that? That's one? That's part A. Part B is what did you do? So? Let's say you were teased by an older sibling. Did you fight back? Was that your fig leaf? Did you cry and run to a parent Like, what did you do? Did you secretly steal something from their room? I don't know. The point is, it's where in your story did you feel it? That's A and then B. What was the choice that was taken? That kind of became almost a part of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this can be really hard work. As you're listening to a podcast, it may take some writing. I think the question that comes up for me is, as an adult and you can have this a lot of times happen, I see this across the board when you have teenage children who get really backtalky and sassy and, you know, kind of don't like you, it can activate a young part of you, like you can feel, like that was how my big brother treated me. I just think we have to still ask ourselves the question when do I feel young? Because I had that happen the other day. We were driving and I felt like I had been mocked, just kind of by our family in general, but just kind of like laughing at mom. You know how you can get laughed at and you're like, ah, but then inside you're like it doesn't really feel good. I found myself making internal vows of not wanting to talk about that particular topic ever again, like I'm never going to share that part of me again. And as I was doing the I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I was like, oh hello, I'm in the vow. Yes for sure.
Speaker 2:Second question and the second one was you said was what parts of yourself. Are you still trying to keep hidden? Yeah, that's probably very similar. Like what? What are those vulnerable, weak parts, like? I mean, I think those are probably. They could be our sins right, they could be our fears which isn't always a sin and they could be just the parts of us that don't feel like we really have a handle on something. You know, there's a little bit of confusion or a little bit of young, like I haven't been taught that I don't really know. Like I feel kind of vulnerable right now. I do think and this is kind of a rhetorical question and that is just where can you take these feelings of shame to Jesus, in getting care and not always thinking we have to repent for the sin, that we used to cover it up. But like what if we went way back to just the feeling? Because he says, let the little children come to me. And I think often when we feel the most shame, we do feel the youngest and most vulnerable.
Speaker 1:I do have a few more practical things, almost like questions. We've heard someone say once and we laughed and we've used it we never do leave junior high, and so if you think about being in junior high or middle school, whatever kind of like clicks, kind of where did you fit in? How did you do it? Were you in the popular crowd, were you the goth, were you the nerd, whatever? So the question really I'm asking right now believe it or not, is not about the past. It's based on that understanding and, of course, it's really good to do work around that.
Speaker 1:How do you fit into your click now? Like, have you identified the fact that you're in a group and there are things that make you feel safe and you're a part of it? A lot of it's financial in our culture. I remember in a podcast several people reached out about this around. I mentioned the person I knew that had to have like $100,000 in their checking account not including savings, not including stocks, et cetera to feel safe. So there's money, there's the cleanliness of a home, there's the appearance of our bodies right, I mean, there's a million more. But the point is, what are the things you use to feel in the crowd, so to speak, in the group, in the tribe, which again become your fig leaves of choice. And here's really what I'm getting at, not just naming them, but what does it feel like to peel them away? Imagine peeling one of them away.
Speaker 1:What comes up for you? Our second episode we're going to look at a cycle called the shame grandiosity cycle. We've had clients been asking about that, so we're going to unpack that. We're going to talk about how to expose shame and the connection of shame to law keeping and then healing. So there's a lot of overlap. Categories are repeated and given slightly nuanced language, so we're getting a more full understanding of vows, agreements, like we've said, of hiding, of covering, of protection. This is where we're going. What makes trauma trauma is the presence of shame.
Speaker 2:Thanks again for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you have any questions or thoughts about the topics today, we'd love to hear from you. We can be reached through our website, emails and social media. Just go to Story Matters Initiative. If you're interested in doing individual or group work work, we'd love to discuss that with you as well.