The Spirit Of Shame (Exposing Shame)

The spirit of shame makes you feel like there is something wrong with you. It makes you feel as if you are not good enough. Shame is a deep-seated sense of unworthiness. You feel like you are not valuable and like people do not like you, and that makes you try hard to compensate for your perceived weaknesses and inadequacies.

The spirit of shame is difficult to recognize. It gets implanted deep within your soul and you go through life wondering what could be wrong with you. You will be seeing the symptoms of shame manifesting in your life but you do not actually know you are in shame. It is a soul wound that keeps people stuck and living in negative self-defeating cycles most of their lives.

Shame usually starts in childhood. The devil is a deceiver and he plants the spirit of shame starting at a young age when we do not know any better. Shame then becomes the point from which you identify yourself, even though it is at the unconscious level. Unconsciously, shame starts ruining your relationships and your life.

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10.

Early childhood painful experiences plant the spirit of shame deep into your soul. Physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and physical neglect, poverty, being raised in a dysfunctional family characterized by mental illnesses in the family, addictions, imprisonment of a family member, domestic abuse, divorce, and death of a family member open the door for the spirit of shame. Extreme criticism or bullying and experiencing violence or man-made and natural calamities also lead to soul wounds, shame being one of them.

Shame is pervasive. The spirit of shame invades the soul and affects every aspect of your life. It distorts the way you view yourself, how you view others, and how you view life in general. Shame manifests in many ways: low esteem, shyness, feeling rejected, perfectionism to try to compensate for your sense of unworthiness, withdrawal from people, feeling unworthy and self-deprecation.

The spirit of shame makes you become a people-pleaser in an attempt to gain acceptance; you do too much for people but at the end of the day feel like people do not appreciate your efforts, that they are taking advantage of you, and that what you do does not seem to matter. Shame makes you do things that you do not want to, just to please people, and this makes you end up experiencing regret and lose your sense of self.

The spirit of shame makes you live in extremes. You view things and people as all good or all bad. This leads to anger and frustration when people fall short of the expectations you had for them. You also place too high expectations on yourself, and this makes you criticize yourself when you fail and you end up feeling like a failure.

The spirit of shame makes you identify yourself with your mistakes or with what other people say about you. If you fail, for example, you label yourself a failure. You take what other people say to you too personally, and make the negative words people speak to you your identity. If for example, somebody corrects you for an error you made, you internalize that and start thinking you are not good enough, and this ends up making you withdraw. You become too sensitive to other people’s words or actions towards you and you are unable to separate your personhood from what is happening externally.

Shame makes you worry too much about what other people are thinking about you. You end up misinterpreting their words and actions as an attack on you. You become quiet, shy, and unable to voice your opinion because deep down you feel like your opinion does not matter and that other people are much better than you.

The spirit of shame makes you dwell on negative thoughts about yourself, about other people, and about life, and as a result, you become very unpleasant to be around. You become very defensive, and use defence mechanisms as a way to hide your inner sense of inadequacy. You project your deep shame on others and use the mask of anger and criticism of others to hide your inner sense of unworthiness or inferiority. Eventually, you seclude yourself and the negative cycle continues. You end up sabotaging yourself. The spirit of shame works together with the spirit of sabotage.

The spirit of shame uses defensiveness as a cover-up. Defensiveness makes you become angry, argumentative, and want to be right and have the final say. This is in an attempt to control people and situations so that you feel like you are in control and worthy. However, such defensiveness, negative attitude, and emotional outbursts end up ruining relationships. You become unable to sustain healthy communication and instead hide what you feel and eventually have outbursts of emotions. The immature behavior makes people disrespect you and avoid you, and this makes you feel like an outsider and leaves you with no friends.

The deep-seated feeling of inadequacy that the spirit of shame brings makes you afraid or embarrassed to share your thoughts. It makes you feel like people will judge you for what you say and that you will appear unintelligent. You dread failure and this paralyzes you and prevents you from taking any action. The spirit of shame makes you feel small and develop a grasshopper mentality. You do not trust that people have good intentions and so you treat them with suspicion and shut them off. The fear of judgment by others makes you lose your identity and you become unable to live an authentic life.

Shame is not of God. If you are experiencing shame, you have to realize that it is an evil tormenting spirit whose aim is to try and block you from becoming who God created you to be. The spirit of shame is a demonic spirit that lies to people that they are not good enough, and so they shrink themselves and live defeated unproductive lives. Shame makes you underestimate yourself and overestimate others. It makes you live a passive life as an observer instead of an active participant. The spirit of shame makes you feel powerless and you become dependent on other people. You become shy, quiet, timid, and passive.

The spirit of shame attacks the mind and distorts how you view yourself. You criticize yourself, view yourself as unworthy and not good enough, and you minimize your strengths and magnify your weaknesses. Shame makes you live in the background. You are unable to express yourself, you live in an internal world full of criticism towards yourself and others, and you lose touch with reality.

Shame is a soul wound that needs healing. If you have been experiencing recurrent negative cycles in your life, it is highly like that the spirit of shame and the spirit of sabotage are operating in your life. These evil spirits are very subtle and cause a lot of harm before a person realizes what is going on.

Shame causes addictions, ruins relationships and families, leads to emotional instability and mental illnesses like depression, causes low esteem, perfectionism, and people-pleasing, can lead to physical illnesses, makes you become egotistical and proud, and can lead to obsessive and compulsive tendencies. Perfectionism, people-pleasing, and egoistical behavior are the main ways people try to hide their deep sense of unworthiness and shame.

If you have been struggling with shame, there is good news. Jesus Christ is the healer of wounded souls.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3.

Shame is a soul wound that God is more than able to heal. Decide today that shame will no longer be part of your life. Start renewing your mind with the Word of God and believe what God says about you. Reject the negative thoughts that have been tormenting you and recognize them as lies from the devil. Do not allow the devil to lie to you anymore.

God did not make a mistake when He created you; there is nothing wrong with you. If there is sin in your life, repent and believe that Jesus Christ has forgiven you. Do not dwell on the past or on the negative; start thinking good and godly thoughts about yourself and about other people.

As a human being, you will make mistakes. Stop identifying yourself with your mistakes. Do not give yourself or other people negative labels. You are a child of God, fearfully and wonderfully made in His image and likeness. Everything that God made was good; you are God’s creation. Your worth and value come from God, not from what you do or from what people say about you or do to you. Do not allow the devil to use shame to try and block you from becoming who God created you to be. Reject every lie of the devil.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4–5.

For the spirit of shame to leave, you need to renew your mind and start thinking differently. Identify and reject all the negative thoughts the devil had planted in your mind. We are in a spiritual battle; you need to put on the full armor of God so that you are able to defeat the devil.

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6:11–13.

Shame hides in darkness, and when the light of God finally shines on those dark voids where the spirit of shame was hiding, shame has no choice but to leave your life completely. Light and darkness cannot coexist.

It is time to become who God created you to be. Shame has no power over you. Take power and authority over the spirit of shame and command it to leave your life forever. No more self-defeating thoughts and actions, no more shrinking yourself, no more self-pity, no more negative thoughts about others and about life. It is time to take the power and authority given to you by Jesus Christ and live in the fullness of His plan and purpose for your life. You are not lesser than others, you are not a reject, you are not inferior. You are who God says you are. Be who God created you to be, unapologetically.

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Originally published at https://www.vickysforum.com on October 2, 2022.