This morning started slow. Coffee in hand, Texas sun already doing what Texas sun does, (although it’s now overcast and rainy) and I found myself thinking about something that comes up over and over again in conversations lately.
Shame.
Not the loud kind. Not the obvious kind.
The quiet kind. The kind that slips in early. The kind that gets wired into us before we even know what to call it.
The program… or if you want to look at it through a faith lens, the spirit of shame. It usually doesn’t enter our lives because someone is trying to harm us. It enters because someone is trying to manage their own emotional world… through us.
Most often, that someone is a parent or caregiver.
Not evil. Not malicious.
But unaware.
Because when a parent says things like, “You hurt my feelings,” or “Why would you do that to me?” what’s actually happening is subtle, but powerful.
They are handing their emotional responsibility over to the child.
And the child, not having the capacity to process that, internalizes it.
Not as information.
As identity.
I am the one who causes pain.
I am the one who does it wrong.
I am responsible for how others feel.
That’s not discipline.
That’s shame.
And it gets installed early.
It becomes a program.
Or, again, if you want to look at it spiritually, it becomes a spirit that attaches to how we interpret the world.
And once it’s in…
It doesn’t just stay in childhood.
It follows you into adulthood and starts showing up in ways that, honestly, would almost be funny if they weren’t so telling.
I was recently talking to someone who told me their feelings were hurt because their dog chose to sit with their spouse instead of them.
Oooooookkkkaaayyyyy….
A dog… being a dog.
Choosing comfort, energy, the spot they like better on the couch.
And yet it was interpreted as rejection.
As personal.
As something done to them.
That’s not about the dog.
That’s about the program.
That’s about a nervous system that has been conditioned to interpret neutral behavior as personal injury.
Another conversation, someone shared that a cat scratched them and it “hurt their heart.”
Again…
A cat.
Being a cat.
No agenda. No emotional manipulation. No deeper meaning.
Just instinct.
But the response?
Personal.
Emotional.
Internalized.
And then another one that really brings it home in my opinion.
A parent sharing that their toddler hit them during a meltdown… and how much that hurt their feelings.
Now let’s just read that again…
A toddler.
With an undeveloped brain.
No emotional regulation.
No ability to process overwhelm.
Doing exactly what toddlers do when they’re flooded.
And yet the interpretation becomes:
“They’re doing this to me.”
That’s where it crosses the line.
Because when we take age-appropriate behavior… instinctual behavior… and we personalize it…
We’re not just misunderstanding the moment.
We’re projecting our own unhealed wounds onto it.
And when that projection gets spoken out loud to a child…
“You hurt mommy.”
“Why would you do that to me?”
“That makes me sad when you act like this.”
What we are doing is training that child to carry something that was never theirs to carry.
Your emotions.
Your reactions.
Your internal world.
That’s how shame gets passed down.
Quietly.
Consistently.
Generationally.
Carl Jung said it in a way that doesn’t leave much room to argue:
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
This is that.
This is unconscious patterning being played out in real time.
And most people don’t even see it.
They just think they’re being sensitive. Or aware. Or emotionally connected.
There is a difference between emotional awareness…
And emotional outsourcing.
One is ownership.
The other is dependency.
Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
That space?
That’s where responsibility lives.
That’s where maturity lives.
That’s where healing lives.
But when the program of shame is running…
That space disappears.
Everything becomes immediate.
Reactive.
Personal.
You feel something… and instantly someone else becomes the cause.
And that’s where power gets handed over.
The moment someone else is responsible for how you feel…
You are no longer in charge of your life.
You’re at the mercy of everyone around you.
Their tone. Their actions. Their choices.
Even their pets.
Even their toddlers.
And that’s a fragile way to live.
From a trauma-informed lens, this makes complete sense.
When a child grows up in an environment where emotional responses are unpredictable, overwhelming, or projected onto them…
They become hyper-aware.
Hyper-vigilant.
Constantly scanning for how others feel.
Constantly adjusting themselves to manage it.
That becomes survival.
But what starts as survival… often becomes identity.
And identity becomes pattern.
And pattern becomes life.
Unless it’s interrupted.
From a faith perspective, this is where truth comes in.
Because shame and truth cannot coexist in the same space.
One distorts.
The other clarifies.
Romans 8:1 says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
No condemnation.
Not reduced condemnation.
Not conditional.
None.
That doesn’t leave room for shame to lead.
It means responsibility, yes.
Accountability, yes.
But not identity rooted in being the problem.
That’s a distortion.
Brené Brown, who has done extensive work on shame, said:
“Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”
Not that we did something wrong.
That we are wrong.
That’s the shift.
That’s the damage.
And that’s what gets wired in when we’re taught (directly or indirectly) that other people’s emotional states are our fault.
So what do we do with this?
We start telling the truth.
Not the soft version.
The real one.
Your feelings are yours.
Not your child’s.
Not your partner’s.
Not your friend’s.
Not your dog’s.
Yours.
And that doesn’t make you wrong for having them.
It makes you responsible for understanding them.
For tracing them back.
For asking:
Where did this come from?
Why did this land the way it did?
What is this actually about?
Because it’s rarely about the surface.
It’s about the program running underneath.
And when you start to see that…
You stop taking everything so personally.
You stop assigning meaning where there is none.
You stop projecting intention onto behavior that has nothing to do with you.
And you start to reclaim something most people don’t even realize they’ve given away…
Your power.
Not loud. Not forceful.
Just steady.
Grounded.
Clear.
You see a dog choose someone else and think — makes sense.
You see a cat scratch and think — yep, that’s what cats do.
You see a toddler hit and think — they’re overwhelmed, not malicious.
And in that clarity…
You break the pattern.
Not just for you.
But for anyone who comes after you.
Because the program of shame only continues when it goes unseen.
And once you see it…
You don’t have to carry it anymore.
Be honest… where in your life have you been taking things personally that aren’t actually about you?
Drop it below. That’s where the work starts.
And if this hit a nerve… send it to someone who needs to see it.
As always loving and praying for you and our world,
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Sergij Shukal On Unsplash
