A Shame That We Keep to Ourselves
Blog / Produced by The High Calling
A knot in the stomach. Feeling trapped, dreading human contact, struggling to be “normal” when our inner dialogue is anything but. Amid fatigue, anxiety, insomnia—we want only to sleep. We wonder, “What if someone knew how I feel? What I’m really thinking?”
These sound like symptoms of stress or depression, yes—but something else is at work. And that something is shame: Shame that we can’t “snap out of it.” Shame that someone will figure out that we don’t have it all together.
So we pass judgment on ourselves, and our shame becomes the invisible, intangible chasm that isolates us from those who care most. Yet the irony is that the only way to break free of shame’s silencing oppression is to let those who love us be with us—by speaking honestly with those we trust, by saying what we really feel to those who matter most.
God, when I want to hide, to act like everything’s okay, I ask for courage to speak of that which keeps me in a silent prison. Bring perspective to my thoughts, balance to my busyness, and grace to the inner turmoil. Amen.
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