Overcoming Shame

Often, the person we struggle the most to forgive is our self.

The process, however begins with your willingness to forgive the person

You might have heard that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.5 It doesn’t work. It also allows that person to live rent-free in your head.

Remember watching a baby learning to walk. They are horrible at it. They wobble all over the place; they constantly fall down. As walkers or runners, they’re not very successful. But when the mom calls grandma, what does she tell her? How many steps baby took. Mom never mentions how many times the baby fell or how wobbly she is. The mom expresses sheer delight in the progress the baby has made. No one expects the baby to run a marathon!

Another root is when something is done to us, such as violence, abuse, rejection, etc. We feel we caused this behavior from the other person or the perpetrator and take on their actions as our shame.

falsely equate our behavior with who we are, and we crawl behind the wall of shame to hide.

One common root of shame is the emotional expectations of perfectionism, which is why we dealt with that first.