Shame as a Form of Control

Do I Have To Give Up ME to be Loved by GOD?
by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

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One of the most common forms of control is shame. It can be a little difficult to see how feeling ashamed is a form of control. Let's start by reviewing how core shame - the false belief that you are essentially bad - begins. When, as infants and young children, we were neglected, shamed or physically or sexually abused, we had only two choices about how to see things. We could see the truth, which was that our parents were wounded and did not know how to love us, and that we were helpless to do anything about it. Or we could believe the abuse was our fault - that we caused it because we were defective, inadequate, unworthy and unlovable.

Because admitting we were helpless might have filled us with the deepest despair - especially as infants when having some power over getting our needs met was a matter of life and death - most of us chose to avoid the truth. Instead of recognizing our parents' inability to love, we blamed ourselves. We developed core shame ("It's my fault they don't love me. I'm worthless") as a brilliant defense against that despair. After all, if we believe that it is our fault we are not loved - that we are so bad we cause others to be unloving to us - then the power to change this, to get love, is in our hands. We can try to be good or do things right. Thus, we hope to control getting the love we need from others. We do the same thing with God.

We become addicted to shame because it protects us from the truth that we really have no control over others and God. We can't make them love us. While we can influence whether others like us or approve of us, we have no actual control over them. Yet, if we operate from the false belief that our best feelings come from others loving us and giving us what our parents didn't, we will continue to try to control getting this. Until we know that our best feelings come from giving ourselves the love we need and sharing that love with others, we will continue to try to control getting love from others.

Until we give up our illusion of control over others and God, we will never understand what we do have control over: our own choices and our own intent. Personal power, which is knowing what we do have control over and taking action, eludes us until we accept that we are helpless over other people and God. The paradox is that we cannot move into personal power until we accept our powerlessness over everything but ourselves.

Giving up control becomes easier when you open to God and discover how irrelevant trying to make God love you is. There is nothing you can do to earn God's love and nothing you can do to stop it, other than shutting it out of your consciousness. You can abandon God, but God will never abandon you. God's love for you is as ubiquitous as the air you breathe. When you know you are loved no matter what, control becomes superfluous.

Despite what some religions say, knowing God and feeling shame are mutually exclusive. When you know God, you also know that the perfect love that is God exists within you, that the essence of your soul is God, is love. When you know that you are love, you move beyond shame and beyond the need to try to manipulate anyone or anything into loving you.

For years I attempted to help people heal their core shame, yet over and over I found they could not get free of their awful feelings. Affirmations didn't help. Therapy didn't help. Nothing seemed to help. One day when one of my clients was expressing her feelings of shame, I got the sense that shame was not the root feeling. Then I heard my spiritual Guidance telling me that the woman's shame was a protection against far more painful feelings: helplessness and loneliness.

Shame is simple to heal, but it is not necessarily easy. Your shame will vanish when:

You have the courage to feel your loneliness when someone's heart is closed toward you rather than attempting to control feeling the depth of that loneliness by deciding it is your fault that the other is closed to you.

You have the courage to feel and accept your helplessness over whether someone opens or closes his or her heart to you.

You are willing to take responsibility for compassionately managing - with God's help and the help of others - your feelings of loneliness and helplessness and to gratefully accept this opportunity to evolve your soul.

Learning to lovingly manage our feelings of loneliness with others and our helplessness over others is the key to healing our core shame. Until we are willing to feel these feelings instead of protect against them, we will continue to use our shame as a form of control.

About the Author

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is a noted public speaker, best-selling author, workshop leader, chaplain, and Inner Bonding facilitator. She has counseled individuals and couples, and led groups, classes, and workshops since 1973. She is the author and co-author of eight books, including the best-selling Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?, Healing Your Aloneness, Inner Bonding, as well as Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God? She is the co-creator of Inner Bonding, a powerful spiritual healing process. Her Web site offers much information and help with the Inner Bonding process. Please visit authors website at MargaretPaul.com