Covenant is so important as we dismantle shame’s influence, because covenant directly challenges our autopilot behaviors. As a covenantal faith tradition, we make mutual promises about the way we will show up with and for one another. And our individual experiences of shame can make those promises hard to keep.
We say that we cultivate trust with one another by celebrating differences, honoring boundaries, and offering compassion and care. And yet our shame often tells us that our differences make us unacceptable. Shame might lead us to feel unworthy of other people’s compassion or care, especially if we’re afraid to let anyone see those pieces of ourselves that most need care and compassion.
Our shame keeps us bound up in the work of hiding and protecting ourselves. It’s challenging to offer compassion and care when we’re focused on how to make sure people only see what we want them to see about us. Sometimes, to hide the pieces of ourselves that feel unacceptable or unlovable by staying silent and not drawing attention. And sometimes we hide what we’re ashamed of by making ourselves scary and loud and intimidating. After all, if we’re in control of the reason we’re being rejected by someone, that feels safer than them seeing the real us—the things we’re afraid of anyone seeing. Plus, it validates our fear that people will reject us. It’s a big win for our shame when we can willfully drive people away.
It’s also a challenge to listen to each other deeply with curiosity and wonder when our shame voice is trying to point out all the ways that we’re unworthy or unlovable. It takes a certain amount of calm confidence to listen well. Most of the time, we want to insert our own brilliant thoughts and ideas, the latest thing we read in a prestigious journal or heard on NPR, or some story that makes us look good. This could very well be our shame voice wanting to make sure we put on a good show so that people will be “fooled” into thinking we’re acceptable.
At the same time, our shame makes it tough for us to speak for ourselves, without need to defend ourselves or persuade each other. Our shame convinces us that we aren’t enough—that our needs and feelings don’t matter. It feels risky to just say, “I’m feeling anxious right now, and I want you to take some time to tend to my anxiety.” Instead, we start off assuming that we need to protect ourselves from other people. Or we compose well-scripted arguments that read like formal proclamations, because that feels safer than just admitting we need comfort and reassurance. All of these kinds of things protect us from being vulnerably connected with others—and with our own inner wisdom.
How can we create safe and brave space for healthy conflict, creativity, and fun when we let our shame voice convince us that it isn’t safe for us to be truly seen? Even though we never explicitly say it in our covenant, the very promises we make require us to confront our shame voice and choose a different way of being. The vision of community we cast with our covenant offers an antidote to remaining locked in our sense of shame.
Maybe most powerful of all, we promise to reconcile through forgiving and making amends when we hurt one another. Our shame voice doesn’t care if we hurt other people, as long as we feel safe and protected. When someone says, “Ouch. That hurt,” we want to explain that we didn’t intend harm, instead of owning that we have something to clean up. Our shame might tell us that we’re unlovable or unworthy if we ever did something that hurt another person. Or we might say, “I’m sorry you didn’t like what I said,” instead of “I’m sorry. How can I repair things?” because it feels safer not to take responsibility for repairing a rupture. Our shame convinces us that if there’s something to repair, we’re somehow bad people.
In all of these ways, our shame lies to us. You arrived into this world worthy of love and belonging. Nothing you do can change that. No one can take that worthiness away from you. Our covenants call us to courageous, compassionate (and vulnerable) connection. We could hold that as a nice aspirational idea, or we could receive it as a deep calling to confront our shame with the possibility of experiencing deeply meaningful interdependence.
What would be different in your relationship with covenant if you knew that you had nothing to prove or earn? How might your connection with your inner wisdom be different if your shame wasn’t in the conversation?
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