The Slow Unraveling of Shame
Last night’s Mental Health and the Gospel session was deeply powerful.
Together, we explored what shame is, how it differs from guilt, and how shame can sometimes serve a purpose when it leads us to repentance that is fully covered by the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross. We created space to share honestly and vulnerably. We encouraged one another with testimonies of those who have and are still navigating areas of shame. We were left with the challenge to wrestle with, study, pray in, trust, and believe God’s grace as we identified the specific ways we want to combat the shame that shows up in our lives.
And I wanted to bring you all on that journey too.
Here’s a bit of my own journey with shame. My hope is that you might catch a glimpse of God’s redemptive work in it and be reminded that this kind of freedom is available to you too.
What Is Shame?
To begin, it’s important to define shame. Shame is a painful emotion rooted in feeling deeply inadequate, improper, or fundamentally flawed. At its core, it carries the belief that something is inherently wrong with who you are.
Shame is different from guilt.
Guilt says, “I did something bad.”
Shame says, “I am bad.”
Shame often grows out of some of our deepest wounds, traumas, circumstances, and lived experiences. For many believers, encounters with God’s Word and conviction, when paired with an incomplete understanding of the Gospel, can unintentionally produce shame. We miss the mark, feel challenged by certain sins, and even after praying, repenting, fasting, or confessing, we still carry a lingering sense of failure. Over time, this cycle can lead us to hide from God instead of running toward Him.
Even church culture and religious environments that do not fully embody and fully TEACH the Gospel of grace can reinforce shame, leaving people feeling exposed or condemned in the very places meant to offer healing, safety, and belonging.
At least, that’s been my experience.
My Personal Journey
Shame played a significant role throughout my life. Growing up as the child of Haitian immigrants, my parents, in good faith, sought to discipline and raise me into someone who would be valued by society and seen as “good.” That often meant that anything outside of traditional femininity, prioritizing self image, and social conformity was met with criticism.
As a tomboy who loved sports, competition, and beating the boys on the field more than sitting quietly on the playground with the girls, I was energetic, outspoken, socially confident, comedic, passionate, and loud. I still am. At the same time, I carried deep empathy and sensitivity, caring deeply for the plight of others. This combination often resulted in being told I was too much in some ways and not enough in others. I was told not to cry so much, not to be so loud, shrink to accommodate others…not to be who I naturally was. This was constant.
The deepest wound came from comments about my body. Despite being highly active and playing competitive tennis six to seven days a week, I was criticized heavily for my weight. I was blamed for the way my body naturally held weight instead of fitting into a thin ideal despite my overactive lifestyle and being forced to diet. I was made fun of for my weight. I desperately sought after male validation yet never felt good enough to be truly loved.
The message I heard repeatedly was this: “You have a beautiful face, but unless you lose weight, you will never attract the man you want.”
Those words became scripts spoken over me and into me. Combined with people pleasing tendencies, they shaped how I saw myself. I constantly compared myself to others, assumed others were better than me, envied them quietly, and constantly wished I could be someone else.
How Did I Begin to Heal?
How did I finally start to overcome the pervasive and all encompassing presence of shame in my life? My answer is simple.
Embracing radical compassion and radical grace.
Not a self generated compassion or grace that relies on my own strength, but a deep internalizing of the unrelenting, never ending, unconditional compassion and grace of Jesus Christ. Grace that does not depend on me getting it right.
This was not easy. It required significant unlearning and rewriting.
Therapy became one of the most transformative tools in my healing. My therapist consistently helped me recognize that the harsh scripts and inner critic I lived with were not my own voice and certainly not God’s voice. They were the voices of others that I had internalized.
Once that truth settled in, I began the work of truly getting to know myself and living it out. Who am I really? What do I enjoy? Am I really loud, socially confident, and exuberant? Then I can embrace that and use it to build connection and hospitality with others. Am I empathetic, analytical, and highly sensitive? Then I can embrace my calling in mental health coaching and spiritual care. Am I competitive and still love beating the guys in tennis and any other sport for that matter? Yes, so tennis is still a constant place of self-care and joy in my life despite it being a source of pain in the past.
Where I Am Now
In this current season, God is addressing my deepest area of shame: body image. Even with insight into where the shame came from, forgiveness toward those who hurt me, medication support for OCD/anxiety/depression, and improved self care, I still struggle deeply with comparison. Envy. Jealous thoughts that lingered beneath the surface, and an unrelenting scrutiny of my own body.
I tried dieting, constant exercise, calorie counting, and hyper vigilance around food. None of it worked. Not because the practices themselves were wrong, but because they were ALL rooted in shame. I was still trying to shape my life around an identity and BODY that didn’t belong to me.
The Holy Spirit convicted me profoundly this past year. As I began a weight loss journey again, God did not ask me to fix myself. He asked me to bring the internal battle to Him in prayer, ask a few others to pray with me, and to follow His lead in healing shame first. He invited me to make health decisions from a place of genuine love and grace for myself rather than punishment and criticism.
To this day, I am choosing to trust God’s flexible yet freeing process. I am trusting His grace more and more, even in moments when my faith wavers (which still happens and is totally NORMAL!).
For me, that means noticing envy and jealousy when they arise, confessing them to the Lord, asking for a reminder of His grace and responding by actively choosing ways to celebrate the body He gave me. Right now, it’s investing in new clothing, hairstyles, foods, and activities that feel authentic and life giving to me.
It means no longer running from environments where comparison tends to rise most strongly, but instead choosing to confess those thoughts honestly to God and fully surrender them into His care. It is trusting that He is shaping my heart and strengthening my spirit, step by step, teaching me how to love and embrace both myself and others more freely along the way.
It means embracing Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28–30 to rest. Resting from society’s broken and inconsistent standards of beauty. Letting go of living by systems rooted in comparison and harm. Choosing instead to set an intention to embrace where I am EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. and allowing God’s approval, my own, and my husband’s to be enough.
and…I am still a work in progress. You are too.
God’s radical compassion and grace invite us to accept the process, lean fully into dependence on Him, and trust His leading toward greater freedom, all while He grows in us the courage to become who we truly are in a world that constantly pressures us to conform.
And that freedom is worth the journey.
Praying you too will begin yours,
Valerie
♥️
