The NIV 365 Day Devotional

Healthy Shame, Toxic Shame

Shame is the emotion which gives us permission to be human. Shame tells us of our limits. Shame keeps us in our human boundaries, letting us know we can and will make mistakes, and that we need help. Our shame tells us we are not God. Healthy shame is the foundation of humility.

Unfortunately, shame as a healthy human emotion can be transformed into shame as a state of being. As a state of being, shame takes over one’s whole identity. Once shame is transformed into an identity, it becomes toxic and dehumanizing. Toxic shame is unbearable and always necessitates a cover-up, a false self. The Bible describes shame as the core and consequence of Adam’s fall. It suggests that Adam was not satisfied with his own being. He wanted to be more than he was, more than human. He failed to accept his essential limitations. He lost his healthy shame.

Before the fall, the man and the woman were both naked and “not ashamed” (2:25). Nakedness symbolized their true and authentic selves. They accepted who they were. There was nothing to hide. They could be perfectly and rigorously honest. But once they chose to be other than who they were, they became naked and ashamed, and they went into hiding (3:9 – 10).

Like Adam and Eve, so many of us refuse to accept our “real selves.” We try to create more powerful false selves, or else we give up and become less than human. This results in a lifetime of cover-up and secrecy. This secrecy and hiding is the basic cause of suffering for all of us.

Prayer: God, help me to cast away my false self and humbly accept my real self as you created me in your image.

Taken from the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible.