Taming What’s Shaming

“Are you finding you’re getting angry a lot?” At this point, his head dipped in shame. He felt judged. Not least did he feel his own judgement. But worse than that he feared my judgement. He was nine years old.

This happens with almost everyone; everyone who is emotionally vulnerable when asked these kinds of questions. It is a hard question to ask, because society has conditioned us to look at anger with shame; that we somehow lack self-control. Even as I asked such a question, I expected the person responding to feel condemned.

My response to their response is critical.
My job is to debunk the shame.
The anger they feel is normal.
Read David, Jeremiah, Job.

Pastoral care visits frequently run like this. There must be a preparedness to broach the tough subjects that are easier to sidestep.

Of course, we cannot just charge in. Rapport must be established. Humour can be had. Superficial matters can be, and are best, interspersed through the dialogue. Indeed, this way it can seem disarming to talk about matters that are difficult to talk about. But tough questions precede the healing of mutual acceptance — me accepting them as normal; them accepting themselves as normal; us both accepting that God knows it’s normal.

Anger, fear, shame, guilt, resentment, bitterness and the like are topics most people avoid. This is because we feel bad that we are not happy, brave, grateful or resilient. But to admit the truth about how we feel is the ultimate in bravery; it is the way forward to feel more genuinely happy and grateful; and, it is the way to a deeper resilience.

Society shames us for feeling
what we inevitably must feel.

When we have lost someone or something dear, we must inevitably feel confusion, upset, fearful, angry. Et cetera. These adverse and negative feelings are normal, yet, as a society, we repel this discomfort, thinking it is wrong because it feels uncomfortable. The Bible teaches that what is uncomfortable can not only be normal, but can be a condition needed for growth to occur.

Those who have never been swamped with a life-overturning grief will be at a loss to see how staying in the negative can help someone reach for the positive. They may never understand, until that horribly fateful day when their life is turned upside down.

It seems so impossibly wrong to languish. But it is in the languishing that God paints the majestic strokes of healing best. Darkness seems to bring out the best, most vivid colours of soul.

The soul that cries out loudest
can hear the softest response of the Lord,
because everything other than God
has become irrelevant.

When someone is irrepressibly rageful, especially when it is out of character, we must ask what is going on for them. Intense feelings of confusion to the point of feeling overwhelmed make us feel out of control, and anger is our most predictable response.

When we are taken into unfathomable caverns of despair, we enter a primitive place, and it is in such a place that we meet the primitive emotion of rage.

We are always surprised and ashamed of these primitive kinds of responses. And guilt for such responses buries us deeper still in the mire of shame. If only we were to consider that there is a cause and effect relationship between grief and anger, fear and sadness.

It is high time that we started to empower those who suffer from unbridled anger, inextricable fear and unparalleled sadness by removing from them the shackles of shame for what they feel.

We must all accept that the mind has its limits, and when cognitive capacity is breached, what follows looks and feels ugly. We must ask what helps… and not do what hinders.

It is neither fair nor just that those who suffer grief would suffer doubly because of shame. Anger can be a sign that we are overwhelmed with confusion, despairing in anguish, or horrendously fearful, or just plain mad for what we perceive as unjust.

Rather than judgement,
empathy is needed.

A listening ear and a quiet voice of comfort,
and the appreciation of cause and effect —
this person is how they are for reasons —
are what is needed.

~

Empower the disheartened,
create in them the feeling of having been understood,
and they will take the compassion they have received,
and give it to others as empathy.

Photo by Dominik Müller on Unsplash