When Shame Says You Are Not Enough
“What is wrong with me?” I whisper to myself. “Why can’t I be more charming, more energetic, more outgoing? Why am I the way that I am?”
A deep feeling of shame washes over me, hot and heavy. It slumps my shoulders, buries my face in my hands. I just want to curl up in a corner and cry. I want to hide away from everyone and everything. Why can’t I just be like everyone else?
Shame.
Why can’t I be more productive? Be more creative?
Why can’t I handle life ‘better’ without becoming overwhelmed by interactions with people — even people whom I love?
Why can’t I be more like her? She’s brilliant, beautiful, fashionable, and seemingly has it all together.
Why do my words trip as they race their way out of my mouth?
Why is my body broken? Why can’t I perform the quintessential ‘female’ obligation of life — conception and childbirth?
Why, why, why?
Shame is my secret friend. I should name her, really. Something ancient, like Matilda or Helga.
Shame isn’t all bad, of course. It spurs us on to action — to work hard, to care for others and ourselves, and to leave aside unhelpful patterns of behaviour that have long been engrained in our bodies and minds.
However, when left unchecked, shame is crippling, paralyzing, and utterly terrifying as it beats us down into the ground, hoping to break us.
Shame researcher, Brene Brown, defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” (1) Shame is that voice that says “I’m not ____________ enough.” Fill in the blank with the word that you hear most often: “I’m not good/strong/pretty/outgoing etc. enough.”
Brene Brown calls this whispering voice your “shame gremlin.” Curt Thompson calls it the “inner attendant.” A recent article I recently read simply called it your “shame voice.”
It’s the voice that says, “There is something wrong with me.” It berates us, saying, “Why can’t I be different than what I am?” It beats us down and yells, “Who do you think you are?”
Shame is universally known to humankind, unless one was born with a psychopath’s inability to feel emotions.
I first learned about shame a couple of years ago, and the knowledge of shame’s perpetuating narratives in my life was liberating. It was so helpful to know that many of the accusations that I had been hearing all my life were primarily spoken by my shame voice.
I began the slow journey of unravelling those accusations and I confronted them one by one with words of truth — truths that had been spoken to me and over me by trusted friends, family members, mentors, and by Scripture.
Recently though, I’ve known the crippling, paralyzing grip of shame once again. It crept in from somewhere and settled into my soul, whispering lies about who I am (or am not) and how terribly inadequate I am as a human being.
My primary shame voices say:
You are not productive enough.
It doesn’t matter how much I do or how full my schedule is, this voice says that I need to do more. After all, Sally works a full-time job and she is raising three kids and maintaining a perfect house and garden. Why can’t I be more like Sally?
So I cram my schedule full in order to prove my worth to anyone who asks. You know, the person on a Sunday morning who says, “What did you do this week?” If I don’t have at least ten completed tasks to rattle off, I’ve failed. If I don’t sound like I am running a marathon seven days a week and somehow thriving in the midst of it, I’ve failed.
Did I write a blog post, complete a paper, read a book for seminary, work three shifts at the hospital, and teach a Bible study this week? If yes, then my week was successful.
What about when I’m feeling sick or tired? Well clearly, I’m a monstrous failure for not being able to maintain my usual level of productivity. (The irony is that I’m sniffling through a spring cold and I am indeed feeling like a monstrous failure due to my body’s betrayal.)
After all, if I’m not producing, then I’m a failure. This message is simply, “You are not productive enough, therefore you are not enough.”
You are not extraverted enough.
After all my weekly activities, I’m exhausted and just can’t muster the energy to interact with other people. Here too, my shame voice acts up: “Why aren’t you more energetic? More outgoing? Why are you so weak?”
In the same vein as the point above, shame tells me that I must have at least three social obligations that I attend per week (at least!). If I fail in this — if I am exhausted and drained and somehow make the decision to stay home in order to recharge — then I am a FAILURE. Worthless. Useless.
Some weeks, I recognize my limits and take all social obligations off my calendar. But then I must make up the time and pay extra attention to my husband, or else he will feel neglected.
The message? “If you are not pouring yourself out for others in all of your spare time, then you are not a ‘good Christian.’ You are not enough.”
You are not good enough.
Not good enough at what?
At being a wife, student, physiotherapist, sister, friend, teacher, or quite simply, at being a human being.
This message cripples me in every way.
I’m just not good enough. At anything.
Therefore, I am not enough. I will be rejected by others when they see how utterly inadequate I am. I will lose those closest to me because I can’t meet their expectations of me. I am not enough.
Then, of course, I feel immense shame for struggling with these things at all. Didn’t I learn about shame a few years ago? Why is it coming back now? Why can’t I get it right? Why can’t I remember and believe the truth — that these are shame’s lies and distortions of what is good and beautiful?
I must therefore be completely incompetent as a human being if I can’t learn to beat something as simple as shame.
When I write it all out, much of what my shame voices say sounds silly. Impossible, even. Sally doesn’t exist; most friends that I talk with agree that a 40-hour work week is impossible to sustain in a healthy manner. Those who work full-time (in addition to caring for family members and maintaining a household) are overworked and burnt out.
Why does shame persist in whispering these narratives of productivity or social aptitude equaling value and worth?
Now, your shame voices may whisper something different, but at the bottom line, shame says, “You are not enough.”
A few weeks ago, I met with my spiritual director. We discussed what I call my ‘perpetual productivity complex’ (that is, my incessant drive to ‘produce’ evidence that my life and work have value, despite my continual exhaustion and desire for rest). She asked a very interesting question:
What was the connection between faithfulness and work in your family and childhood?
We spent the next hour unpacking this question.
The answer was rather simple and formulaic: Faithfulness equals productivity.
Or vice versa, productivity equals faithfulness. Laziness was viewed as the ultimate sin by my family and the conservative Mennonite culture I grew up in. You dared not be lazy or you would be ridiculed by the community.
Faithfulness looked like working hard all the time — in your workplace, at home, in caring for your family, in serving others and in your church. Yes, there was Sabbath rest each Sunday, but these days were more about socializing and visiting others than about resting. ‘Rest’ meant a fifteen-minute nap or perhaps an hour of solitude on a Sunday afternoon.
My childhood, while wonderful, was completely filled from day to day: I went to school followed by the seasonal sports practice, ate a quick supper, then ran off to the evening youth group event. Saturdays were full of chores on ‘free’ weekends and various tournaments on the other weekends, followed by church and youth group events on Sundays.
Thus, you can see how I struggle with the message that what you do matters most. If I am not doing all of the time, do I have value? My shame voice says no.
The great difficulty lies in the spiritualization of that message: To be busy is to be faithful to God.
I’d warrant that almost everyone who grew up in North America has internalized this message to some degree or another. In addition to being busier than our time and energy allow, we believe that we have to execute everything perfectly, too.
Perfectionism is simply the voice of shame telling you that you are a failure if you do not complete the task perfectly.
The problem, I think, lies in the false message that Christians are to be perfect and flawless in every way. Of course, this ‘perfection’ looks an awful lot like the American business model with a supposedly ‘Christian’ twist: “Be busy, be perfect, and be joyful in all circumstances even when you’re burnt out and exhuasted.”
The strength of shame’s voices can be overwhelming. How can we even begin to combat these deeply-engrained messages that have been synonymous with Christianity and faithfulness for much of our lives?
The answer: Grace.
Overly simplistic in concept, but radically difficult in practice.
Grace — the free and unmerited favour of God, the Christian belief that we do not live on the basis of our own doing, but by the loving, compassionate work of God.
Simply, grace says that I actually can’t do life on my own and that I need help — God’s help. Grace says that God sees my weakness and he gives me the power through the Holy Spirit to continue each day.
Grace also says that we are finite human beings.
The overwhelming lie of productivity, busyness, and the elevation of social extraversion is that we are infinite, omniscient beings.
God’s grace says otherwise.
He is God, and we are not, no matter how hard we might try otherwise.
God’s grace also says that we are made for rest and vulnerability. After all, he rested, and he is God! He certainly didn’t need rest, but he rested anyway. Why on earth do we think that we don’t need rest when the God of creation rested?
Jesus took time for solitude. Yes, he worked hard, but he also rested hard. Repeatedly, he went to the mountains or wilderness to pray. Rest and prayer were necessary for his ministry and his life on earth. Why do we think that we don’t need rest and time with God in order to thrive?
But make no mistake, our rest is not simply the ‘recharge period’ between our periods of intense work. Our rest is sanctioned by God and is to be enjoyed fully.
As image bearers of God, we rest and work. We play in God’s good creation, just as Adam and Eve did. We were made for all of it — work, rest, and play. None is to be elevated above the other; each is necessary for us to be thriving human beings.
Work is faithfulness.
Rest is faithfulness.
Play is faithfulness.
Therefore, one of the best practices against the shameful lies of productivity and busyness is Sabbath-keeping. Rest, connecting with loved ones, and worship — these reorient us to the things that really matter, the things that give us life on this earth.
I don’t have it all right. I keep hearing the shame voices in my head; this is the perpetual battle of the fallen, sinful state of our world. But I know that God’s grace is more than my shame. I know that there is truth that combats the lies that I have internalized. I am valued and worth something simply because I am me and you are valued and worth so much simply because you are you.
An Exercise: If all of your life is contained in a bucket and you dump out that bucket on a table before God, which areas of your life do you consider ‘more faithful’ than others? Which things do you hold up proudly before him and say, “Here look! I’m being faithful”? Which things do you hide?
Notes
Brene Brown. Women and Shame: Reaching Out, Speaking Truths, and Building Connection (Austin, TX: 3C Press).
