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September 1 - November 22, 2020
As they each conducted a shame inventory and began to concretely disregard those moments where shame lived and replace them with embodied actions, a curious thing began to happen. Over a period of several months, they reported that their anxiety about Eric was measurably reduced. In fact, they had begun to engage him actively about his questions, validating how hard many of them were to answer, but simultaneously making themselves available to him if he wanted their reflections or advice.
Why had none of his elders asked, “Where are you?” and not stopped until receiving the real answer from Brady. And then the truth tearfully came. “I am so afraid they will see me for who I am and tell me I’m not fit to be here anymore.”
shame hides most effectively in environments where it ostensibly should be absent.
To admit that we do not know something, are not good at something or have made a mistake—to be vulnerably known—is not one of our best skill sets.
we are demonstrating empathy when we acknowledge that the work someone is doing is challenging and that we appreciate the effort. We are essentially joining with the student, admitting that the work is difficult and that perseverance is needed in order to master the material. The more I support this person’s hard effort in this way, the more she or he feels felt and experiences being known.
As followers of Jesus, it is imperative that we routinely do things that help us remember not only which story we are part of but that our story is reflected by our being part of a community. There is no “Jesus and me” option. There is only “Jesus and us.”
To flourish, a mind or a community must turn its attention to where shame is hiding in order to create space for even greater growth, even in the way Jesus moves from his place in heaven to join us (Philippians 2:5-8).
To live faithfully is to trust, to deeply attune to the presence of the Holy Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being. As we live faithfully, we actively imagine that he joyfully delights in being in our presence, and that all we do, we do with God, mindful that we live in dependence on him and each other.
We must do the sometimes painfully hard work of perseverance, of looking at shame repeatedly and disregarding it repeatedly. In so doing the resilience of character—the flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized and stable states of integration—emerges as the byproduct of our transformation, which enables us to remember a different future.
if we believe we are part of a great tapestry that God is weaving, then every moment we choose to intentionally live vulnerably, exposing our shame in the context of safe, healing communities, we, with God’s help, place one more stone in building the kingdom of God, which is both now and not yet. In the process we tell the great story of hope, trust and joy, despite the hard work that is necessary to bring a great drama to its climax.
leadership is enhanced when we are willing to live more in line with our created state of vulnerability by revealing the truth of who we are. And eventually that truth will include those areas in which we don’t have the answers or when we need help.
our storytelling practices begin at home, are honed in the family of God and are then taken with us into every vocational realm we occupy.
This book is about shame. About its soul—and its attempt to dismantle ours. But mostly this book is about telling a new story, a story of hope and creativity, one that scorns shame in order to imagine new minds, new possibilities and new narratives, all of which point to the new heaven and earth that we believe Jesus is surely bringing. We have seen that healing shame through God’s coming in Jesus is not only something that regenerates our relationships between ourselves and God, family, friends and enemies, but so much more. It is one of the most important features in liberating us to tell a
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Chapter 1: Our Problem with Shame What features of shame (emotional nature, judgment/condemning in tone, hiding, self-reinforcing, isolation/disconnection) feel familiar to you?
What is your impression of the counterintuitive actions necessary for shame’s healing?
Chapter 2: How Shame Targets the Mind Describe your reaction to the working definition of the mind. What parts of it seem novel? What parts are helpful?
How well do you pay attention to what you pay attention to? What challenges does this pose for you?
Chapter 3: Joy, Shame and the Brain What is your experience of joy in your daily life? What would it be like to keep a record of the small moments in your day in which joy is present but out of your awareness?
Who are the people who propagate joy in your life by consistently demonstrating their delight upon encountering you?
Chapter 4: The Story of Shame You Are Living How did it strike you to discover that you are telling your story at all times?
What part of your story that was told before and early after you were born seems to have a significant influence over how you think about your life now?
Who are the people who regularly enable you to tell your story well by listening just as well? If you do not have relationships such as these, who currently is in your life with whom you would like to form that kind of relationship?
Whose story do you help to tell by being a good listener?
Describe your shame attendant. What does she say to you? How does he look at you? His tone of voic...
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Chapter 5: Shame and the Biblical Narrative What do you feel when you consider that “the man and the woman were naked and they felt no shame”?
What tactics do you employ to hide? From whom do you hide? With whom—on your best days—do you wish you could be fully transparent?
Who are the people who come calling to you, inquiring of your whereabouts, as God did with Adam?
Chapter 6: Shame’s Remedy: Vulnerability What has been your experience of making yourself intentionally vulnerable?
What parts of your life do you fear vulnerably exposing to another?
Chapter 7: Our Healing Cloud of Witnesses Who would be those, living or deceased, who make up your own “great cloud of witnesses”?
What do you begin to notice as you persevere, upon encountering an accusing moment of shame, in turning your attention instead to the images and sounds of “You are my beloved son/daughter; I am so pleased that you are on the earth and that I have the privilege of being your Father”?
To whom are you able to confess the events of your life so as to hear, when necessary, “You’re right. You’re wrong”?
Chapter 8: Redeeming Shame in Our Nurturing Communities What memory do you have of joy in your early developmental life?
Where have you experienced shaming experiences in your family of origin?
In what ways did the family in which you were reared offer healthy way...
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Where have you witnessed shame being “scorned” and healed within the community of faith? What concrete steps were taken to enable this to happen?
Chapter 9: Renewing Vocational Creativity What are the domains that make up the collection of your vocational callings?
How does your shame attendant interfere with God’s calling for you to enter into creative stewardship?
What community can you begin to build that will support the story of new creation that you, in answering God’s call to join him, are beginning to tell?
