The sentiment of shame is often felt by some as a sense of heaviness and guileful sin. Though to many, if asked to identify their sinful behaviors, may find it difficult to actually establish particular cause for this feeling. Intrinsically feeling not-good-enough is cunning in its masking of root and genesis. The feeling of shame appears to us as something that is part of us; something that indeed feels as though it belongs infinitely internal. With the feeling that seems at times inseparable from our being, shame shockingly appears as a side-car companion to other relatively familiar feelings which makes our attempt at self-awareness a daunting task.

It seems a possible antidote for deciphering shame amongst other primal emotions is to separate what we do from who we are. The feelings of guilt, embarrassment, discouragement, and frustration seem to come from our own evaluation of what we have done. Shame appears when we attach ourselves onto the standard of what we think we should be, shoulda been, could be, or coulda been. There may be no evidence for us to feel unworthy or undeserving, and it is possible that the subjective and most likely invalid standard is what’s reinforcing our shame.

It is important to remind myself that shame, whether deserving or undeserving upon the circumstance, is another beautiful thing that makes me human. At times, shame may be the only thing to rescue me from being an indignant human being. In those times, shame can help me find a way to reconcile my own self-made dissonance and accept that I am in God’s love. Like the girl, who was told she can do better and never a moment’s praise for her successes as a child, dwells in her search for the approval and validation of others. She becomes familiar with feeling uncertainty and full of doubt; she second guesses; she feels shame from her inability to ever know what is finally “better” and if anything she does is never enough.

Shame is powerful and sometimes conniving but it can be helpful, once we can separate the healthy from the unhealthy shame.