Earlier this month, I picked up two books related to the topic of shame (see previous post), and I started reading the more psychological of the two right away (“The Soul of Shame” by Curt Thompson). Three weeks later, and I finally finished reading my fourth book of the year.

Thompson’s book was a decent read for several reasons. He is a psychiatrist discussing the topic from both a clinical and a theological perspective. He connects the topic of shame to brain functions and neural activity- associations that are important areas of research for today’s mental health practitioners. Shame disrupts and disintegrates connections between areas of functionality in the brain. He also restates the implications of shame as a spiritual and psychological actor. Shame, initially a psycho-affective state we all feel in moments of extreme awkwardness, graduates into conscious and unconscious decision-making which strives to block psychic pain, and breeds disassociation and disintegration in the process. Connection, creativity, courage, cognition, and conscience are all blunted. The central fear associated with shame events is abandonment.

At core of the shame condition is the deepfelt internal narrative one has subscribed to at one point in their life:

“You are not enough.”

From this cardinal belief within an individual, self-protection and isolation emerge. And in our faulty, blurry thinking, evil sets up a home base from which to work. Friendships are fractured. Destructive dynamics rule relationships. Inner health and healing are impossible to find. And spiritual poison is produced.

Thompson goes as far to say that all of sin is a product of our dealing with shame.

Today, Brene Brown has done extensive writing on shame and how to deal with it. My interest in the topic has existed from before she emerged on the scene, when psychology was still staring at Adult Children of XYZaholics, family dynamics and relational dysfunction topics in the 1990’s. Shame was just coming on the scene as a measurable, attributable source of immense damage in people and relationships. Today, it is in the spotlight as a psychological issue to be dealt with. And I’m not sure Thompson says much different than Brown does on dealing with the topic.

Shame is best fought faced, identified, and then ignored. he suggests.

We find healing from shameful conditions, experiences, and situations through abject vulnerability about where they, and shame itself, have taken us in our past. This is a vulnerability within a trusted community.

Where Thompson keeps us focused is that, in the big picture, God created man to know joy in life, by first being known and loved deeply by Himself, but also in our vulnerable, cooperatively constructive relationships with others- relationships that ground us in connection and creativity. Relationships that breed courage within us. Relationships rich in grace and forgiveness, and empty of condemnation and condescension.

Such relationships are only available between people who stand at the same shores, and live under the same light. People who have come out of the shadows of their woundedness and have found, in their own lives, grace, forgiveness and acceptance, despite the messaging offered in the world around them.

In His eyes, I am enough. And because I am enough, I can be whole, I can be integrated. I can handle what I am facing.

I can love.

On my personal journey at this point in my life, this book was very good to help me revisit some of these topics I have wrestled with related to my own history. If anything, the book has reminded me of the blunting, depressive effects that shame presses onto its practitioners. It was helpful for me to learn some about the biology of the brain, and how shame disintegrates thinking patters and cognitive functions. And perhaps what I mostly needed to here, the book reminded me that I needed some good, developed, trusted relationships in my life- if anything, to help me call out dysfunctional thought patterns that do not help me to live as a more integrated and connected person.

I need regular help changing the narrative that dictates how I frame unpleasant encounters and events in my life.

“Every minute of every day we choose between shame and love.”

If this is true, recognizing shame and its negative impact in our lives is a worthwhile awareness.

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“The Soul of Shame” by Curt Thompson was published in 2015 by Intervarsity Press Books.