My friend and I were discussing shame. She was wondering if you really ever got over it. The shame we have, she was wondering if one just had to endure it to some degree. We each have shame that is hidden away. Our resiliency, our ability to bounce back from shames message is determined by our support group, our community, and the risk we take in sharing on today's podcast, I will address the issue of shame, shame, resist, revisited because it revisits us and I want to address the power to read its hold over our lives. Stacy Eldrid. She's quoted as saying, if we all listened long enough to the voices about who we should be, we grow death to the beauty of who we are. Shame does that to us. It keeps us hidden away. Deaf to the truth of our beauty. Shame keeps us too afraid to be discovered for who we really are because we believe shames message, that we are unlovable, that we are worthless, and that if discovered, we wouldn't be liked, perhaps even despised for our life or for what we did or for what happened to us.

This is shames, awful work, damaging our lives, purpose, and destroying our souls. Hope I have suffered, was shamed for decades. It started early in my life due to my childhood perceptions and the story I told myself the feeling of not being good enough, the message that I was too sensitive. You get it. We are told we are either too much or not enough. It may be a fleeting statement by someone that loves us, but somehow it sticks and repetition. We use as evidence making this story, this perception, our truth, part of the fabric of our life. This makes this damning lie all the more damaging my mid teens. I was raped by a boyfriend. I was shamed because I had been drinking and left myself vulnerable. I took it upon myself to shame myself. My boyfriend heaped even more on me. How did I let this happen? Seeking help. Later on, I was blamed by the counselor to whom I had hoped to get some closure and healing. She only confirmed that I was the one who was responsible for what happened to me, and there are other traumatic experiences that left my soul. Oh, so wounded the shame mounting. There were minor occurrences that confirmed shames lies in my life during my undergraduate work. Just feeling a bit out of step with my classmates. I assumed that I was not getting it. They all seem so together too, to admit the need for help when everyone else seemed to get it. I just muddled through, but being on the Dean's list and later the president's list, this did nothing to stop that shame message. Crazy, Huh? Then my graduate work, the lie that I was too stupid that it must have been a mistake for me to get into graduate school and this was a message that a professor heaped on me. He even went as far to ask if I had been a mistake for me to be in graduate school. The shame list goes on. The shame mounts and gains strength. Can you relate to any of this? Do you have any hidden shame that keeps your soul sequestered away? We each have our shame story, and as I said earlier, the resiliency, the ability to bounce back is depends a whole lot on our community and around those who love us and how much we're willing to share and risk, and although it is our story, once shame is revealed, it becomes easier to shine the light of truth and have all the shame storm revealed. And as we allow the work of truth in our life, shame continues to diminish and is eventually loses power. Shames tentacles are often far reaching and deep wrapping around our soul. So it does take a lot of work to loose the stranglehold that shame has on our lives, but it is so worth it. I'm here to tell you it is so worth it. These things I shared with you today are things I couldn't have shared earlier, but no longer will I let shame rule my life. So this may very well be a life work, but it's worth doing to answer my friend. We do not have to learn to live with shame, but we do have to learn to identify it, reveal it, expose it for its lies that it is so we can move on. I know that shame does not relinquish, relinquish its residents in our souls easily. It rears its ugly head time and again spewing it's lies, but it's only because we have disturbed it's dark residence. In the recesses of our heart. The battle is ugly for awhile, but in the end, truth and love when and shame is squashed, so keep pressing on it. It is worth it. Sharing Shame. You find a trusted friend or a reliable trusted counselor who understands, shames, impact, then share with them your heart and your hurt. Share with them what you're. You've been thinking. Let them kindly and lovingly tell you how has been a lie. Trust them as they proclaimed truth over your life, receive their love, received their truth, received their message. Shame has a stranglehold on your soul for too long. It has kept you isolated and separated. Today you can begin the process to extinguish the work of shame on your life. Now, here's the truth that will help you on this journey of dumping shame from your life. This truth has two parts. The first part is this part of life is changeable. This changeable part is in the dealing with people. People will always have opinions about us. Their opinions are not. Our business is spoken of behind her back. It's not for us to know, leave it alone. People's opinions change nearly as quick as the wind shifts. We want people to like us, but it is not the basis of our identity and shame will keep us seeking other people's approval and recognition while keeping us separated from really connecting. It's an awful cycle. Shame uses our desire, our need to be connected. We seek approval and love from people and when we sense rejection, we retreat and in retreating. Shame reminds us that our secret self cannot be discovered because then people would really not like us, so we tell ourselves that if we just try harder, maybe we will be accepted. Even loved. We then create or add to the veneer of are pretending not to care what people think or we start shrinking into the quiet recesses of our home as we become disengaged from the life we once knew and this happens almost unknowingly, unaware of this slow creep of shames rule in our life. We are created for connection and relationship, but shame when it takes root strangle holds us. We are prevented from using our unique gifts and talents because we are too fearful to risk being ourselves because to be ourself means that people would discover and that is just too big of a risk, and then we go about our life living like a fraud with skin on. We know something's just not right. We meet. Maybe we may be very social on the outside and no one knows the inner struggle. We may become very reclusive. Shames effects are varied as there are people, but ultimately shame prevents us from connecting. It prevents us from fully enjoying relationships with friends, family, and our spouses. Shame prevents from boldly using our abilities with confidence. Shame keeps us tethered. No, myered is a better word in the muck of lies, limiting fullness of life, so this first part of truth, people's opinions are always changing. t's something to remember. The second part of this truth is there is something that is unchangeable. This part of life has absolutely and forever unchangeable and it has to do with God. He is unchangeable and his truth is unchangeable. He is the only one who can define you and me, and that's pretty awesome that his identity, his proclamation over us, his truth, what he speaks over as never changes, unlike people's changing opinions. Think about it this way. I love pottery. I marvel and admire those who are gifted at throwing clay on a wheel and fashioning a beautiful piece. The whole process of glazing and firing and waiting, perhaps embellishing whatever the pottery creator wants. Her opinion of her piece defines the piece. Since she is the creator. This can apply to any in any creative endeavor or anything that we put our hands to do because even home decorating home, making the work we do, we define it by being the creative power behind it, which leads me to the part two of this truth that I mentioned, your maker, our God, is the only one who can define you. God is the designer of his creation for which we are apart. As a matter of fact, we are his defining glory and excellence of his creation because when he breathed life into man, he declared this creative work and the rest of creation as good each part of the creative process of making all things seen and even unseen. God said it was good then wait for this nugget of truth, this unchanging truth. God then made woman, and you know the story she was created from God by taking a rib from Adam side and when God was done with this act of his creative work, do you know what he said? He stated it is very good. The emphasis on being very good. He is the only one that kind of define us. His words and his way are unchanging and we women are his very good part of creation. Remember this, when shame tries to clean to you again, speak truth to your soul, received the proclamations, those who love you and know you. You may not believe them yet, but received them and speak them to your soul, and here's a challenge. Look at yourself in the mirror, but don't just stop there. Look yourself in the eye and speak truth to yourself. Speak Truth to your soul. God says that through Jesus Christ in God, we are blameless. He calls US beloved. We are pure and holy. We stand in Christ victorious. We are forgiven. We are redeemed, which means bought, purchased from the chains of sin and death, purchased from living in shame, and there's more. God's Word is full of the truth of our identity. Shame wants you and I not to discover this truth. Shame wants us to keep seeking that changing opinions of people. Shame wants you to pedal in this futility as quickly as fashion changes from season to season or even month to month zero people's opinions, they changed about us, but remember this, God's opinion and proclamation over us never changes. The God of Noah and Abraham and Israel is the same God today. He is unchanging. The God of the Gospel accounts, which is really just another name for the biography of Jesus Christ is the same God of today. God has not changed his word, has not changed. Circumstances change. Outcomes are often not what we hope for people's opinions, wax and wane, but God never changes. He states that we are his beloved creation. He proclaims that we are his those who believe and receive his son. He says, we are joint heirs with Christ. God tells us we are part of his kingdom. He proclaims freedom and forgiveness and joy restored to those who receive his son. Jesus work on the cross on our behalf and this is how we battle. Shame this truth. It's a truth. Two-Pronged assault on shame. Remembering that we don't have to hide from people because their opinions constantly shift and change. We have to remember that God is the only one who can truly define our identity. He has this right being the creator of us all created and defined us for a unique purpose. Shame attempts to keep us hidden away from living out this life purpose. I love this quote by Victor Hugo. There is one spectacle, grander than the sea, and that is the sky. There was one spectacle, grander than the sky, and that is the interior of the soul and the interior of the soul is what Shane damages. When we finally come to realize the work shame has done to our lives this pretending there's nothing wrong, no cracked and sharp edges of our life when we arrive at this place and begin the work of eradicating shame from our soul. This is where true connection and community blossom. This is where we are, the living epistle of love and where we can truly experience and enjoy a joy filled life. Find a trusted friend that you can share with what you have been afraid to share. Open the door on this dark recess and allow your friend or a competent and trusted counselor to help you shine the light, realizing that you are not alone in this, this on earthing shame and eradicating up from our lives. Each one of us has something we have felt shame over and it has kept us prisoners, but no more. Our identity is not in who likes us or knows us. Our identity is not being accepted by any particular social group. Our identity is the truth of God and what he says about us. Shame wants to keep us from this. Healing is in God's word and from there, this is where we can escape and be rid of shame. Thank you for joining me today on the art of connection. This is Sandra Vernon. Please consider subscribing to the art of connection and even leaving a rating that would really be appreciated. In the meantime, remember, you don't have to be imprisoned with shame. Just start allowing yourself to receive the proclamation of God's truth upon your life. Find a friend, a trusted counselor that you can share with and let the work began. You won't regret it.