Have you been holding on to past guilt and shame? In this week’s blog, I want to encourage you to be set free by sharing some thoughts on how to let go of past guilt and shame.
When we are guilty of having done something wrong, it is good to have a sense of shame. Some people can do horrible things, stupid things, behave disgracefully, behave rudely, and behave disrespectfully without feeling any shame. Not feeling any shame, when we should, is a problem when we continue in the shameful behavior.
When I was a teenager, I sometimes teased my younger sister about a physical characteristic she had no control over whatsoever. She was very skinny. I know it was mean and thoughtless; I was making fun of her at her expense. It was not until later that I realized the negative emotional impact it had on her and the negative self-image it created in her. I felt bad about it but carried the guilt and shame of what I did for many years without doing anything about it. Finally, after many years into adulthood, I told her how sorry I was for what I had done and asked her for forgiveness. It had a healing effect on both her and me.
To carry the shame and guilt with me for years until I finally addressed the issue, did not do my sister or me any good. When we do feel shame, and feel it rightfully, it is only useful if we use that shame to motivate us to change for the better. When we realize that we were wrong we should take action to redeem ourselves. We need to see the shame as a catalyst to promote positive change. First, we go to our Creator and confess without any reservation how wrong we were and ask for forgiveness, then we sincerely apologize for our behavior or our attitudes, we ask those we have wronged for forgiveness. Not only should we apologize, we must do everything we can to redeem ourselves. And then we forgive ourselves.
After apologizing, restoring and redeeming ourselves, we need to move on, even if the wronged person cannot forgive us. If we continue beating ourselves up and continue to carry guilt and shame, after we have done what we could do to be reconciled and redeemed, we are of no service to anybody.
We need to continue to do what is right, and good, but let go of the guilt and shame that binds us.
Sometimes we feel that it is too late to ask for forgiveness or to restore. The person we have wronged may have moved away, we lost contact and cannot find them anymore. Or the person we have wronged may have passed away.
For example, when I got married to my wife we moved to the US, where we raised our family. For many years I called my parents every Sunday. I continued to call my mother after my father passed away six years after I moved overseas. My mother’s health deteriorated, she suffered from dementia and it became more and more difficult to talk to her on the phone, when – finally after she moved to a nursing home – I could no longer call her; and that went on for two years. I wrote to her regularly and I visited once a year but felt sad that I could not visit her more often. The end of December 2017 one of my sisters sent me an e-mail telling me that mother was sitting at the nursing home crying when she visited. She cried and said, I am waiting and waiting for my boy to visit me and he is not coming. That tore a lot at my heartstrings, but my other sister, who was more intimately involved with my mother told me that it would not make sense for me to travel to Germany just for three days (which is all the time I had). She said, mother would not remember my visit the next day. But I decided to visit that summer for a week and booked a flight. In February my mother passed away and I wished I had visited her one more time before.
Now that my mother is gone, it would not serve her at all if I beat myself up over this situation. I know she would forgive me, and I need to forgive myself. Instead of wasting energy by beating myself up over it, I can redeem myself by visiting or calling an elderly person, who is lonely or in a nursing home. I can let go of guilt and shame and use my energy to serve somebody else in a way that would please my mother.
In his prayer of repentance, recorded for us in the Psalms, King David gave us an example on how to move forward even after we have committed a grave sin:
“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin.” [Psa 51:2]
As David did, we need to confess completely, take full responsibility without finding any excuses, without minimizing the severity of what we have done, for who we were, for what we have neglected. Then we ask for total forgiveness. If we are not holding back with taking full responsibility and showing total remorse, God will not hold back His forgiveness. And then we should not hold back on accepting that forgiveness.
Beating ourselves up over something that we cannot change anymore is not helping anybody.
Now our focus must be on redeeming ourselves, of building trust and patiently waiting for that trust to be restored, giving people time to accept that we have changed.
Letting go of shame is especially important for those who have no guilt, such as those who were abused as children. We must never hold it against a person who has been violated, otherwise we become as guilty as the one who committed the abuse. We need to do everything we can to help them to heal and not ad to the injury they have already endured.
So, turn things around, focus on positive action now and in the future instead of dwelling on the past. It is unproductive to hold on to past guilt and shame. Let go of that guilt and shame that binds you.