Shame: Foe or Friend?

Shame is a long-time companion for me.  In fact, our relationship goes back to the day I was four years old and, tagging along with a neighbor friend, we stole some green beans from a neighbor's garden.  I can still her the voice of the woman yelling out the window, "Hey!  Stop!  I'm going to call the police!"  It was a moment of moral awakening for me. I remember the hot flash of shame consuming my whole body.  It's almost as if I had taken a bite of the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, my eyes were opened for the first time, innocence was lost, I knew the difference between good and evil (or so I thought), and I was aware of my nakedness.

Shame has been a companion on my journey ever since.  I lived roughly four years without it and have now lived over thirty-two years with it.  But I still can't always determine if this sensation is a friend or a foe.  Maybe someone else will read this and help me decide.

On the one hand, Shame often makes me reject myself.  It makes me want to run and hide from others lest they see who I really, truly am and also decide to reject me.  On the other, Shame is often the thing that prevents me from judging others.  Shame makes me the tax collector at the back of the temple who beats his chest and screams, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner!"  Without Shame I would be the Pharisee standing in the front, saying, "Thank you, God, that I am not like that sinner over there!"  And, because I really don't want to be the Pharisee, I thank my Shame.

Nevertheless, Shame has at times driven me to the very brink of complete self-rejection.  Those who have been there know what I mean.  In these moments, I suspect that Shame is my deepest, oldest enemy.  I suspect it becomes (or was it all along?) what the ancient ones called "the Accuser" or "ha satan."  But then, is the answer to utterly reject shame in all of its forms?  I hope not.  Because if I did not feel any Shame whatsoever about any behavior, then I could very easily become a monster to others, a selfish black hole that sucks in all the joy and happiness around me.  And, if that is what I become, it would be better for me not to exist at all.  That is, if I became my own god, I think I would become a tyrant.  Unless I have a Master to submit myself to I will become the very "accuser" that I so loathe.

And so, as you can see from my wanderings in this post, I am unable to answer this question.  It is very disorienting to not know which voices inside of oneself to trust.  Now I know that some will say, "Greg, you need to distinguish between guilt and shame.  Guilt is productive whereas shame is destructive."  But that only pushed the question back a step.  Even if I did agree to this distinction (and I'm not sure I do as I wonder sometimes if it is a Western mental construct to divide our internal experiences into such sharply distinguished categories), it only pushes the question back one step.  Because then the question becomes, "So how does one distinguish between guilt and shame?" And I, for one, have never had this internal, spiritual "sixth sense" for determining when I am feeling a so-called "healthy guilt" vs. a so-called "toxic shame."  Or at least I certainly don't have that sense right now.