Self Judgment, Condemnation, Healthy Shame and Healing (Continued from last month)

   With healthy shame, the message is actually constructive as well as accurate. With healthy shame, the softer message that we may have overlooked is that “I have simply fallen short.” “I have fallen short of my ideal way of behaving, acting or functioning” or if I am following Christ, “I have fallen short of God’s will for me.”  Discomfort is part and parcel of this kind of shame but not the gnawing pain of toxic shame which makes us prone to hide or try to escape.
    The redeeming gift of healthy shame is that it points out the basic truth of “I have fallen short” but it also points out an even deeper truth, if I am open to it. That message is that “I will always fall short” and the reason is that I was made that way. We are not God. If we were, we would be perfect and thus never fall short. As it is, God made us human and he knew we would fall short. It is this very Achilles heel that was also intended by God. Because we fall short and aren’t perfect, we need god. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t need god. We’d be complete and perfect onto ourselves. Clearly, this is not the case.
   In summary, it appears that an effective aid in dealing with addictions, trauma, abuse and the repercussions of dysfunction and sin that follow in their wake, is the teaching about the nature of healthy shame and the difference between self and other judgment ...