When You First Started Feeling Bad About Yourself
Naming the Shame and What to Do About It
PS: Something about Substack rolls back the writing clock for me, taking me back to when I was a novice writer, unaware of publishing rules like proper opening sentences, the art of titling and never starting a post with a PS. It’s good for my book coach self to be here. I break rules, again.
After all, if I titled this something fancy like, “The Shame Cycle” you wouldn’t have cared as much to read it.
(Ironically, in order to talk about shame, much like the way shame itself projects subtly, you have to come in the back door with it).
What I’m saying is that we can’t typically identify shame as what we are experiencing, while it’s often what’s boring a hole into our soul.
A boy called us fat in elementary school. We felt ashamed of our size at a time the most complex relationship issue we should have been facing in school was dealing with smelly boys making fart noises at their desk.
Someone took physical advantage of us. We felt ashamed in our bodies at a time that the only thing we should have known about how our bodies felt is the sensation of petting a soft stray kitten or the sting of skinning our knee when our bike chain fell off and we wrecked.
We noticed that we were the biggest girl in the room. If there is anything females know from an early age without even being taught, it’s that we shouldn’t be the most of anything. Don’t be the loudest. The most opinionated. The most vocal. The smartest. The prettiest. The biggest. No matter what we decided we were the most of, it brought shame.
Even years after we experienced these things, we never named shame as our struggle. We blamed body image. Self-esteem. Identity issues. Trauma. Mean girls.
All of those things were real. In some way they have too, been part of the problem.
But shame has been far sneakier. It has come out in over apologies, lack of boundaries, a desire to shrink (literally and figuratively), and a constant quest to gain more confidence.
I actually started writing this post with that very thought — to help answer a question I get asked alot, “how do I gain more confidence?”
I hear this from my book coaching clients all the time. They want to write a book, but they struggle with the classic “imposter syndrome” that they aren’t a writer, don’t have what it takes, are too tarnished from their past, and who do they think they are doing something so special? (In fact, when people take THIS QUIZ, the #1 response is that they lack confidence to write a book and that is what is stopping them.)
I hear it from women wanting to join what they perceive as the body positivity movement. Will posing on the beach with our cellulite showing give us a new form of body confidence? Will losing weight help us finally get there? With the hope these will help, we jump in.
The list could go on. It seems like all of us just want more confidence.
The problem is, it’s not something that a 3 step program will bring us. It’s not a name it and claim it way of life. We can’t just repeat the positive body slogans or pose in bathing suits and it miraculously cures the years of struggles and trauma our bodies and souls have endured.
If it did, we would all have written that book by now. Walked into rooms without apology. Stopped thinking about being fat every day after that selfie on the beach.
I don’t know when you started feeling bad about yourself.
What I do know is that for almost all of us, shame is in some way not only much of the problem, but almost always what is in the way. It certainly was for me.
*Can I tell you what helped me get over my shame around my body struggles?
Developing a whole body theology. It is not an understatement to say this completely changed my life. I didn’t think it was possible, after all the body battles and trauma I have endured. But what I learned about the embodied Christ and how this reality connects to me as a whole person literally broke me of self-loathing and striving in my body. I help you go through that process for yourself in Body & Soul, the Bible study. I truly hope you will do this either alone or with girlfriends. If you live in your body the same, again, after going through it, I will be very surprised. :)
Learning about how deeply God loves me. Besides the Bible, one book that really helped transform my thinking about this was Gentle and Lowly. I highly recommend it. Getting to know the heart of God for you will help you transform in ways you need, trust me.
One thing I know for sure: shame is never something God wants to use in your life to help you. There’s nothing you need from it. So it’s truly time to let it go.
*Close Circle Community: I have book recs for you in different genres for this summer + a “fun facts” list about me with my love of books — a few I used for reference in my research for the new Bible study! Keep reading for that!