The Lies Shame Tells

Sometime in the space between morning and night, laying in a twin bed with a child who had a bad dream, I realized that I had forgotten to return a form for teacher appreciation week. I immediately felt a wave of shame crash over me. I can hardly articulate how much I appreciate teachers, especially this particular teacher, who has been such a perfectly well-timed gift to my child. How could I forget such a thing?

As shame loves to do, the feeling grew and intensified. I immediately began thinking about all the other balls that I’ve dropped. Emails and messages I haven’t yet responded to, friends I want to text and call but haven’t, messes hidden in closets and storage rooms, to do lists with items that keep being pushed to the next day. Why can’t I get it together? What is wrong with me? The wave of shame grew and grew.

When I got up in the morning, I sent an email, made a plan, and found a way to honor my daughter’s teacher for teacher appreciation week. The thing that went wrong had been made right, but the shame still lingered, repeating its haunting questions.

This is shame. It takes a mistake or an error and magnifies it times a thousand. It turns a behavior or a bad moment into an indictment of our value and worth, and the final judgement is always the same. You are not enough, you will never be enough. And what is worse, you are alone. You are the only one who isn’t enough, the only one who doesn’t have it together.

These are shame’s two favorite lies. You are not enough, and you are alone.

And they are lies, plain and simple. Big, fat, ugly, stinking lies. And the more we listen to the lies, the more we repeat them to ourselves and marinate in them, the truer they feel.

When we drag our shame and the lies it tells into the light, we find freedom. We are reminded that our value and worth are not held in what we do, in an interaction, a mistake, a performance, or even a habit. Clean floors, returned forms, and saying the right thing at the right time do not add one iota to our value. On the flip side, a messy house, a forgotten piece of paper, and an awkward interaction do not take one speck away from how much we matter. Those things do not actually hold the power to make judgments about our worth.

When we drag our shame and the lies it tells into the light, we are reminded that we are not alone. I have a beautiful friend who sometimes sends me pictures of her messy house or messy children or messy self. Every time I get a picture, I am reminded I am not alone. It’s not just me. We all have messes, we all make mistakes, we all have areas of our life that aren’t what we want them to be. We are all human, and we are all in it together.

These were the reminders I needed, laying next to a snoring five-year-old. I needed to remember that forgetting a form for school does not speak to my value or worth. I needed to remember that I cannot possibly be the only one who has made this particular mistake, and even more so, I am not the only human who sometimes drops the ball. I needed grace and connection.

Honestly, that’s what I need right now too. That’s what we all need right now. Grace and connection. Reminders that we are enough and we are not alone. Strength to fight the lies that shame tells, to bring the secret fears into the light and find freedom.

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