Mourning: God's Call (excerpt continued)

Did you want the next section from the chapter on "Mourning"? The next sections deal with shame, hollowness within. I am posting.

Book excerpt:

BLESSED

Eight Steps to Emotional, Relational, Spiritual Wholeness:
The Healing Power of the Beatitudes

Chapter 2

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4

Shame

Guilt is “I have done wrong”. Shame is “I AM wrong”. Guilt is “I have done dysfunctional acts”. Shame is “I am dysfunctional”; there is something wrong with me as a person.

Now, there is actually good shame and not just bad shame. Good shame makes us realize we are not God; we are only human. There is only so much I can do. I must depend on something beyond my humanness to be complete, to be whole. Bad shame is feeling hopeless, worthless, an out-cast. There is something wrong and it’s not going to get any better. What I “am” cannot be remedied, cannot be cured.

Shame is commonly shared in families. This is what is called shamed based families. There are family secrets that everyone [or at least significant ones] in the family know about, but deep down also realize they are not to talk about. These secrets become the “white elephant” within the family circle. In counseling, family members can talk about family problems except the ones that really need to be talked about: the white elephants standing in the middle of the counseling circle that no one will admit.

Because of this, shamed based families tend to become frozen families, with each family member having a label to carry and they must act to live out that label. These labels can vary but common ones are the hidden child, the brainy child, the perfect child, the symptom bearer. The most needed family member is the symptom bearer. This is the one who acts out the family dysfunctions so the rest of the family do not have to face their own inner shadow. This is the shadow that encapsulates those things deep inside they do not want to face, what they really are. Sometimes in these families, it is the symptom bearer, the black sheep of the family, who is the most moral or at least one of the most moral persons in the family, because at least that person realizes there are wrongs that need to be dealt with. The perfect child in these families may be the least moral for that person wants someone else to act out their dysfunctions, their secret sins, their peccadillos, so they do not have to face them.