The Compassion-Based Workbook for Christian Clients

Finding Freedom from Shame and Negative Self-Judgments

Joshua J. Knabb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780815394358
• eBook ISBN: 9781351123525
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Compassion-Based Workbook for Christian Clients integrates contemporary research in clinical psychology on compassion-based approaches to shame with a Christian worldview, offering a wide variety of strategies for Christians to better understand and combat shame and negative self-judgments. Chapters lay out a four-step process to help clients let go of unhelpful thinking patterns that lead to shame, experience God's compassion on a deeper level, and extend this compassion to themselves and others. Readers will find a wealth of Christian-sensitive experiential exercises, journaling assignments, biblical examples, and case examples throughout the workbook. Audio recordings for several guided meditations are also provided to help Christians practice the strategies offered in the workbook.

	CHAPTER 1
	Shame, Negative Self-Judgments, and the Fall of Humankind

Introduction

In this chapter, you will explore the definitions and characteristics of shame from both psychological and Christian perspectives. In the field of psychology, shame typically involves global evaluations of personal “badness,” along with a tendency to withdraw from others and “conceal” perceived shortcomings. From a Christian viewpoint, shame is a reminder of humankind’s separation from God, coupled with a “powerless longing” to restore this rupture (Bonhoeffer, 1955, 1959). In other words, for Christians, shame is a signal that tells us we have a deeper need for God.

You will also learn about shame-proneness and repetitive negative thinking to help you better understand the symptoms of these shame-related experiences. With repetitive negative thinking, you may get entangled with either ruminations or worries. In either case, getting caught up in this form of negative thinking can lead to additional painful inner experiences, such as shame and self-criticism.

Furthermore, you will explore the “danger,” “drive,” and “contentment” systems (Gilbert, 2010); unfortunately, you may overly rely on your “danger” and “drive” systems, and underutilize your “contentment” system, during moments of shame and negative self-judgments. From a Christian perspective, although your “danger” and “drive” systems are necessary as a result of the fallen, broken world in which you interact and live, God has also provided the “contentment” system—including the neurotransmitter and hormone oxytocin to reinforce bonding, the parasympathetic nervous system, and a deeper relational connection during instances of distress and danger—to help you rest safely in his proverbial arms.

To conclude the chapter, you will compare and contrast mindfulness and Christian apophatic meditation, learning about how the latter can be used to simultaneously (a) relate differently to your difficult inner experiences of shame and negative self-judgments, and (b) turn to God to connect to your “contentment” system (Burroughs, 2010; Gilbert, 2010). Throughout the chapter, you will complete exercises and writing activities (e.g., journaling), as well as learn from biblical and case examples.

Defining Shame: Psychological and Christian Perspectives

Shame can be difficult to define, in that it is made up of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and relational ingredients (Gilbert, 1998). In terms of cognition, shame often involves deeply entrenched views about yourself, such as “I’m worthless,” “I’m unlovable,” or “I’m bad.” Your thoughts connected to shame may relate to globally rating yourself—in your totality—as bad, flawed, defective, and so forth. In other words, the focus is on your perceived flaws (Gilbert, 1998). Yet, these negative views of yourself, including self-blame as a central component, often develop based on beliefs about “missing the mark” or “coming up short” and are linked to some sort of external expectation or comparison to someone else (Gilbert, 1998). Therefore, your perception that you somehow lack worth or value develops based on comparing your behavior to the behavior of others.

Regarding your emotion of shame, it may involve an experience in its own right, or can be linked to anger, humiliation, anxiety, disgust, or a mixture of these affective states (among others) (Gilbert, 1998). Certainly, there is a wide range of emotional experiences that are attached to shame. As a result, shame can be a confusing, scary experience, leading to a struggle to fully understand just what you are feeling.

Behaviorally and relationally, shame often leads to the desire to cover up, hide, and so on. When you are experiencing shame, you may want to run away, isolating yourself from others because of the personal belief that you are inherently flawed, defective, or unworthy of others’ love and esteem. Unfortunately, this desire to “conceal” can lead to added pain, in that you are now alone in your suffering, resisting the need to reach out to others for fear of further exposure.

Sensitivity to shame can develop based on a wide variety of early life experiences. For instance, abuse and neglect in childhood, or being bullied in adolescence, can lead to the conclusion that the world is a threatening place, given that people have mistreated you, criticized you, or questioned your worth or value; when this assumption is made, you may be especially vulnerable to turning on yourself via self-doubt, self-criticism, and so on (Gilbert, 2009). In other words, you may begin to treat yourself the way others have treated you. Without the sense of safety and support that come from close, trusting, and loving relationships, you can end up negatively judging yourself on a regular basis.

To state this differently, you may first experience external shame, which comes from being criticized or judged by others, rejected by a group, or neglected by friends and family; in turn, you may end up internalizing this shame (i.e., internal shame), devaluing and blaming yourself and experiencing depression and anxiety in the process (Gilbert & Irons, 2009). As an alternative response to external shame, you might begin to criticize and judge others, blaming them (rather than yourself) and experiencing anger along the way (Gilbert & Irons, 2009). In either case, shame is often experienced from the outside in, meaning it can originate in your environment, leading to turning on yourself or others as a way to defend against the pain.

To offer a quick example, Jonathan is especially sensitive to shame, and often struggles with shame-related experiences. On one particular occasion, he is told by his supervisor at work that he needs to increase his productivity when it comes to generating weekly reports within a sales company. When he is told to improve, Jonathan immediately thinks to himself, “My boss is saying this to me because I am a horrible employee. No one else is getting told to improve. This feedback must mean that I am worthless and am not valuable to the company.” He also feels a mixture of anxiety about an unknown future and humiliation, in that his supervisor shared this information with him in front of several colleagues. Finally, Jonathan wants to go home and never come back. He also has a hard time talking to his supervisor for the rest of the day.

In the case of Jonathan, he is globally rating himself, which includes his behavior, as inherently flawed in some way, given he believes he has “missed the mark” when it comes to the standards of his job. These thoughts are accompanied by painful emotions—an amalgam of anxiousness and humiliation—leading to the desire to withdraw from work and his relationship with his boss. Over time, these difficult experiences of shame can certainly weigh people down, leading to heightened sensitivity to even the smallest of perceived criticisms and the ensuing downward spiral of self-doubt, emotional pain, isolation, and loneliness.

Transitioning from the psychology of shame to a Christian viewpoint, God created humankind in his image; yet, Adam and Eve turned away from him in their decision to eat the forbidden fruit, resulting in a sudden awareness that they were naked (Genesis 3:6–7). As the next step in this famous story reveals, Adam and Eve “hid from God among the trees of the Garden,” with Adam expressing fear because of his newfound realization of being exposed (Genesis 3:8–9).

Although the two were tragically removed from the all-encompassing security of the Garden, God showed them compassion in his willingness to “clothe them” (Genesis 3:21; Bonhoeffer, 1955, 1959). For the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the fall led to humans “seeing ourselves,” rather than fixing our eyes upon God. In other words, we experience shame because we are aware there is a significant distance between ourselves and God (Bonhoeffer, 1955, 1959). Bonhoeffer described the Christian experience of shame more formally with the following:

Shame is man’s ineffaceable recollection of his estrangement from the origin; it is grief for this estrangement, and the powerless longing to return to unity with the origin. Man is ashamed because he has lost something which is essential to his original character, to himself as a whole; he is ashamed of his nakedness.

(Bonhoeffer, 1955, p. 24)

Overall, a Christian understanding of shame tends to involve the following key elements (adapted from Bonhoeffer, 1955):

• With the fall, we erroneously turned from God to ourselves, which has led to our ongoing struggles with self-preoccupation.

• We now experience a deep awareness of our exposed, vulnerable, and separate existence, apart from God.

• We now struggle with a general feeling that something central to our existence is lacking/missing, which is a perfect union with God.

• We have a powerless yearning to return to a perfect relationship with God, reminiscent of Adam and Eve’s original union with God in the Garden.

• After the fall, shame serves as a signal of our need for God, and our incompleteness without a perfect relationship with him.

• Shame points us to both the problem and solution—we are separate from the perfect love and intimacy offered by God; yet, the experience of shame functions as a reminder that we need to reach for God (not turn away from him), and that our very existence is incomplete without him.

• To overcome shame, we need to be “clothed with the forgiveness of God.”

Ultimately, for Christians, shame is a signal that tells us we have a deeper need for God. What is more, the antidote to shame is the love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God, revealed in the grand narrative of Scripture. Although we chose to turn from God, he offers us redemption via his Son, and will eventually restore all things so Christians can live in perfect union with God. This workbook, therefore, will help you cultivate a deeper relationship with God as the Christian solution to shame, recognizing that God is offering you his perfect love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness from moment to moment.

Shame and “Missing the Mark” in the Christian Tradition

Before moving on to an exploration of shame-proneness, I would like to briefly review the notion of “sin” from a Christian perspective. In that this workbook is about your ongoing struggles with shame and negative self-evaluations, a Christian worldview inevitably acknowledges the role that “missing the mark” plays in human functioning. Interestingly, one of the Greek words for sin in the New Testament, hamartano, means “missing the mark,” reminiscent of an archer missing his or her target (Erickson, 2013; Strong, 2001a). Commonly feeling like you have “missed the mark” when striving to meet God’s standards is a ubiquitous human experience; still, it may lead to chronic self-criticism, which adds an additional layer of suffering in that you may struggle to truly experience God’s love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

The Christian tradition teaches that, regrettably, sin is pervasive, impacting all of humankind on an ongoing basis and resulting in a chasm in our relationship with God (Bloesch, 2017). For Christians, one of the central ingredients of sin is “unbelief,” which means we struggle with trusting in God’s promises and infinite love, revealed throughout the pages of the Bible (Bloesch, 2017). Unfortunately, sin regularly impacts us on an individual, interpersonal, and societal level (Bloesch, 2017).

In the first half of the first millennium, Augustine of Hippo noted that we are like sick patients in a hospital because of sin, “fallen, wounded, and frail, standing in need of the healing and restoring grace of God” (McGrath, 2011, p. 381). This understanding is certainly a compassionate way of viewing the human condition. We need healing because of our ongoing struggles with “coming up short.” God’s grace, working through human relationships within the Christian church, can help us to deepen our relationship with him and others so as to ameliorate the shame that gets in the way of true intimacy and connection.

Returning to the original Garden account, because Adam and Eve wanted to be “like God,” rather than “dependent on him” (Bonhoeffer, 1955, 1959), humankind has suffered from several ongoing consequences, including being separated from God, removed from the perfect safety found in the Garden of Eden, and the tendency to veer off course, heading in our own direction (away from God) on the roads of life (McGrath & McGrath, 2002).

Based on this reality, humankind struggles on a physical (e.g., death, illness, disordered functioning), personal (e.g., we are no longer perfectly dependent on God as our source of safet...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Shame, Negative Self-Judgments, and the Fall of Humankind
• 2 Attachment to God and the “Contentment” System
• 3 Compassion, “Contentment,” and a Deeper Relationship with God for Shame and Negative Self-Judgments
• 4 Thinking with Compassion
• 5 Feeling with Compassion
• 6 Behaving with Compassion
• 7 Attending and Imagining with Compassion
• Index