Jeff King Counseling
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| PLUGGING THE SHAME DRAIN, PART TWO |
Shame is like the drain in a tub. No matter how much you pour in, unless the
drain is plugged, the water drains away. As long as shame has a foothold in our lives, all the love and affirmation others give us seep away and leave us empty.
The result is two-fold. One, we lose our capacity to enjoy the relationships we have. We dismiss the love others give us, believing they are either insincere or ill-informed. We’re convinced that if they knew what we’re really like, they’d reject us.
Second, we place unrealistic demands on those we’re in relationship with us. We pressure them to convince us that we are loveable. But they can never do enough to satisfy our doubts.
Either way, we sabotage the very relationships we so badly need.
The question becomes how to plug the drain.
It compels us to answer the fundamental question of life—what makes me a worthy person?
Larry Crabb breaks this down into two questions. One, what makes me secure? This is the quest to know we’re loveable and experience unconditional, enduring love.
Two, what makes me significant? This is the quest to know we’re valuable, that we count. We long to make a meaningful contribution in our world.
How we answer these questions determines whether or not we plug the shame drain. Our capacity to enjoy relationships hinges on our answers.
We often look to possessions or ideal relationships to answer the question of security. Both depend on external sources to define our worth.
We often answer the question of significance with possessions, status, career accomplishments and relationships. In so doing we end up in similar territory—placing our sense of value in unpredictable, external sources.
Both routes propel us to live from a position of other-validation. We depend on others to give us worth and to affirm our validity.
The results are predictably painful. Others inevitably let us down, or worse—they reject us. If we’ve placed our eggs in that basket, we’re devastated.
Plugging the drain of shame takes us to a different position—one of self-validation. Rather than depending on external sources to ascribe us worth, we look within.
Knowing that we are inherently worthy frees us from the tyranny of others’ (including our partner’s) opinion of us. This provides us a solid sense of self that gives us courage to risk loving others and frees us to tackle the tough job of relationships.
This sense of self comes from a radical faith in God’s love and grace toward us. Our security comes from the fact that God loves us unconditionally. Significance comes from being made in His image.
Believing our worth is rooted in this, and this alone, is one of the toughest challenges of faith. We give lip service to believing it, but we best be not fooled by thinking we’re immune to trusting in other sources.
Embracing the grace Jesus demonstrates is the antidote to shame that we desperately need. It empowers us to love courageously and overcome the drain of shame.
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| 31 Oct 2009 - 00:13 by Jeff King |
Marriage & Family
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