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REFRESH THE SOUL
Stop Feeling Invisible: Did You Know There Is Such a Thing as Good Shame?
The Difference Between Good Shame and Bad Shame
Have you ever been shamed or embarrassed to the point of wanting to be invisible? Can shame be good? It seems contradictory, doesn’t it? But maybe it’s not. Wanting to be invisible is connected to shame and shame can drive you to react in unhealthy ways, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Carl Schneider writes in Shame, Exposure, and Privacy that without shame there is no sense of privacy or intimacy. In fact, shame is not a sign of fear or something we are meant to overcome. Instead, it is a mark of humanity — the one creature on earth that blushes. I think about the moment God spoke to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3). All God said was, “Where are you?” to which Adam responded, “I heard Your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself,” (Gen. 3:9–10).
What was so shameful about Adam’s nakedness? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. At that moment, Adam became aware of his own humanity. God merely asked a question and Adam recoiled into his humanity, bitten by shame.
When there isn’t any shame, an individual won’t have clarity of who they are. For Adam, he suddenly realized that God is God, and he was…
